When the bay becomes a sea of salad green

As the Atlantic tide recedes, Courtmacsherry Bay becomes a sea of salad green, being compared by one environmentalist to a golf course.

Decomposing human waste and farm slurry are among the contributory factors to the vast, sheet-like spread of sea lettuce.

For locals, tourists and holiday homeowners, the nauseating stench has become a now, year-round phenomenon in the bay, which services the villages of Courtmacsherry, Timoleague and Kilbrittain.