Many of the earliest discoveries of dinosaur and other prehistoric reptile remains were in the area surrounding Lyme Regis and Charmouth. Notable among these were the discoveries made by self-educated palaeontologist and fossil collectorMary Anning, in the 1820s. The weather in the bay is temperate by English standards, and far more temperate than many other places at a similar latitude. The reason for this is the warming action of the Gulf Stream. The area along the coast of Lyme Bay is thus a popular holiday destination. On 22 March 1993, four schoolchildren died in what is known as the Lyme Bay kayaking tragedy. Lyme Bay was the site of Exercise Tiger, a practice run for the D-Day invasion of France in 1944, using the beach called Slapton Sands near Slapton, Devon as the practice landing area. The operation went horribly wrong when German E-boats appeared on the scene and attacked the landing craft, killing 749 American Army and Navy personnel in the middle of the bay. A ship commissioned in 2007 for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary carries the name of the area, RFA Lyme Bay.
Underwater
Much of Lyme bay is not visually spectacular, there are few dramatic underwater rock cliffs painted with a riot of colour; nor is it beautiful clear water offering panoramic vistas across the seabed. The reefs in Lyme bay are mostly low lying and the waters tend to be fairly gloomy and turbid. As this is essentially a large, open, sandy bay exposed to the prevailing winds, then significant amounts of suspended sediment are the norm. Whilst winds may ease in summer, it is also prone to strong plankton blooms during May and June, with a second less pronounced bloom in late summer. Thus underwater visibility rarely exceeds 10 metres and frequently may be less than 3 metres. The reefs in the bay, though numerous in the centre and east, are mostly discontinuous, forming a patchwork of low rocky outcrops surrounded by sediment. This means that they tend to be covered by thin veneers of sediment as tide and wave action lifts and sweeps saltating sand across them. The amount of sand will vary, depending on the size of the reef area, how high the reef rises above the surrounding sediment plain, the strength of tidal streams in that part of the bay and how strong the wind has been recently. The flip side of this is that the marine life communities on these reefs tend to be rather different from those inhabiting areas with perhaps more visually spectacular ‘clean’ reefs further west.
Wildlife
Tank wrecks from the D-Day practice provide a venue for diving. Marine life includes the Devon cup coral and pink sea fan . The pink seafan is a nationally protected species that occurs in very high densities on some of the limestone reefs in Lyme Bay. Reefs in the Eastern part of Lyme Bay support a population of sunset corals. Sunset corals are one of the very few species of true corals (i.e. stony, or scleractinian, corals found in British waters. Sunset corals are rare in British waters, known to occur at only a handful of locations. The Lyme Bay supports one of the densest populations found around the UK and also the easternmost population known in UK waters . The reefs have been under threat from scallop dredging which, if unregulated, might destroy the coral's habitat. Devon Wildlife Trust has been campaigning to protect the reefs, calling for an end to the dredging and trawling within a zone to help the reefs recover. About 20% of this area is now protected by a voluntary agreement made between the DEFRA and the fishermen of the South West Inshore Fishermen's Association.
