Less Salt in the sea

38 replies

SharkBaitOooHaha · 03/07/2025 18:16

Discussing this with a friend today. I grew up in London 1980s and every summer holiday as a child we’d go to Leyesdown. I clearly remember the smell of the sea, it smelt strongly of salt. I have been to Hastings and Cambersands recently and that salty smell has gone, my friend (who hasn’t been to the beach) thinks I must be losing my sense of smell, maybe I am.. Why else would the smell have changed, anyone else noticed this?

OP posts:

KrisAkabusi · 03/07/2025 19:06

You can't smell salt. What most people consider to be the smell of the sea is rotting seaweed, giving off an iodine smell. Seaweed is often cleaned up on swimming beaches now, so you won't get as much.

Hobbes8 · 03/07/2025 19:06

That wasn’t salt you could smell…it was sewage. Stand downwind of a sewage plant and you’ll get a rush of 80s beach holiday nostalgia.

Dont worry though! It’s coming back now water companies can dump shit with impunity.

FrenchFriesSurprise · 03/07/2025 19:05

The sea is at the end of my street. When it's warm, we can smell the seaweed on the rocks. When the sea is rough and it's windy, we can taste salt in spray blowing off the waves. But we can't smell the salt.

bellamorgan · 03/07/2025 19:03

The sea never smelled salty to me. Maybe you’re thinking of the sea weed and dead crustaceans.

A local beach smells very beachy. Other beaches without the millions of dead crustaceans and seaweed don’t smell the same.

GarlicMetre · 03/07/2025 19:01

Seaside smell is mostly seaweed and fish. It's fairly possible that there was still small-scale fishing going on in the 1980s: individual boats bringing the catch to shore, instead of floating factories that process and chill the fish while out at sea.

Salt, iodine and ozone do have a smell, though, and children would be more acutely aware of it. Ozone actually smells horrid - kind of metallic - but the low concentration in a sea breeze is invigorating 🙂

AngelsWithSilverWings · 03/07/2025 18:56

I live by the sea. For us it's seaweed we can smell. At low tide we get the smell wafting up from the seafront.

MissDoubleU · 03/07/2025 18:53

Actually studies show that the salinity of the sea has increased across the majority of places since the 80’s.

But.. smelled strongly of salt? I don’t think that’s something I’ve ever thought when standing near or on the ocean. Beach smell for sure, sea smell but just.. salt smell??

CatsLikeBoxes · 03/07/2025 18:39

I feel like i remember when I was young long long ago, getting off the train at the coast somewhere like Brighton and being able to smell the sea from afar. And now although my sense of smell is definitely inferior now, I have thought for a long time that there's a less seasidey smell around.

Clychaugog · 03/07/2025 18:38

Does salt even smell?

DirtyPeepingMucklowe · 03/07/2025 18:34

Of course the sea doesn’t smell salty anymore — everyone’s been nicking the artisanal stuff for their sourdough focaccia and avocado scrambles. Table salt’s for peasants now. The middle class have harvested the ocean dry for their Himalayan-infused, truffle-dusted sea salt grinders. Poor old Thames estuary never stood a chance.

Releasethesausagesohbollocks · 03/07/2025 18:31

Its the chemtrails.

Hoardasurass · 03/07/2025 18:24

Due to the melting of the polar ice and glacial melt water diluting the salt to water ratio it is becoming less salty which is what's messing with the gulf stream and if it continues it could shut it down completely and that would cause the UK to get much colder.
What you're noticing is climate change in action

FuzzyPuffling · 03/07/2025 18:17

Your sense of smell reduces with age.

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