Carr Houses put-in (Moreton)

This launch sits on Liverpool Bay, the corner of the Irish Sea at the combined mouths of the Mersey and Dee. The River Mersey has the second highest tidal range in the UK, varying from about 4 metres at neaps to 10 metres at spring tides, so the foreshore here empties out at low water into a broad expanse of drying sand and mud, Mockbeggar Wharf, within which lie Mockbeggar Sands and North Bank sands, and closes up against the Wallasey Embankment at high water.

The embankment itself is a 3.5 km sloping concrete sea wall and promenade protecting Leasowe, Moreton and Meols, with access ramps down to the beach along its length.

The foreshore is within the Mersey Narrows and North Wirral Foreshore Ramsar wetland site (reference 2202, designated 2013) and Site of Special Scientific Interest, which protect the intertidal sand and mud flats and the invertebrates, such as shore crabs, shrimps, prawns, lugworm, ragworm and cockles, that sustain the wintering and passage birds recorded here, including Eurasian oystercatcher, common redshank, dunlin, sanderling, ruddy turnstone, northern lapwing, bar-tailed godwit and Eurasian curlew. Natural England has investigated recreational disturbance as a pressure on bird numbers across these sites.

The disused white tower of Leasowe Lighthouse stands to the east: a 33.5 metre brick tower built in 1763, the oldest lighthouse built from bricks in the United Kingdom, in use until 14 July 1908. To the west, at Dove Point, peat and in-situ tree stumps of a submerged forest at least 5,000 years old are exposed at low water between the old slipway and the groyne there. Offshore in the bay stand the turbines of the Burbo Bank wind farm, 57 turbines in total (an original 25 built in 2007, extended with 32 more in 2017) around 7 km out.