20th May 2024

A slap on the face and a full face wash

Breezy. Not trees-bending-over breezy but hedges dancing and dead leaves learning to fly breezy. The wind blows pictures of the sea into your head. Not always comforting images.

Cow parsley has won the battle of the verges. Delicate, lacy white cumulus orbs reaching up over tall grass and hemlock and new season nettles. A still life of spring.

Sinister ditch is hidden from sight on both sides by tall, picturesque cow parsley, tall grass and the occasional highlight colour from a tall skinny dandelion. I haven’t yet decided whether its out-of-sight, out-of-mind status makes it more sinister or less.

A hugh spotlight of sun hit the sea as soon as we caught sight of it, turning it into an angry mess of pure silver. The clouds soon moved but the silver pool remained on the horizon, an impossibly beautiful far away land.

The sea itself was shouting wham, bam, thank you mam, wound up by the north north easterly. On the beach it was fourteen degrees, with gusts up to nineteen mph. You could feel the breeze. It wasn’t hang-about weather but nor would it give you goose bumps.

Seafishers call these waves ‘significant’. It was an hour before the first high tide which meant that although the sea was deep enough to swim in comfortably (unlike the low tide ankle biters), most of the time, it was possible to touch the bottom. Within reasonable distance of the beach, anyway.

We stood and we looked. Puck, the Electrician and Bikini bounded in, up and over the break point of the waves, to the depth that’s safer to jump the oncoming, and to have clear sight of what’s next.

It was one of those mornings. You either felt, ‘nah, can’t be bothered to be pushed around’, or, ‘bring it on, I want some energy, I want the rest of the world wiped from my mind for a few minutes.’

Cousin opted for paddling. I’ve been in a lot of bumpy seas, frequently worse than this, and colder too. This morning’s water was eleven degrees, reasonably comfortable, you’re not going to freeze, even if you do get knocked over and under.

I hurried in, easily through the low waves, timing my entry to the water to avoid the significant waves that were heading right at me. I mis-timed it perfectly, jumped up the side of what looked like the hull of a tanker right in front of me to receive a slap on the face and a full face wash with it. A lesson but not a painful one.

I blinked and jumped over the next one without an issue. I waited for a still ish patch, for once got it right. Puck helped me out and I walked happily back. The tide had carried us south and to the point that I was level with the boats.

Puck ran north along the beach and dived into the sea again and again. ‘That swim was great,’ said the boatbuilder, changing on the beach next to me. And it was. We’ve been lulled into still seas and have had no waves to play with.

This sea is a lesson. Remember not to be complacent. Give the sea the attention and the respect it deserves. And it will still slap you on the face whenever it chooses.

The weather was too breezy for tourists and dog walkers. For once, we had the beach to ourselves.