An unruly vandal draws us to the beach

26th February 2024

The winds have changed. System shift. Suffocating low greys have been blown away and with a toppling north easterly, it begins to feel like East Anglia again. Not a proper winter though, beach temperatures are around five degrees.

This morning, the north easterly dominated everything. The sea was so furious, it was completely unapproachable. Boiling with rage, unimaginably heavy waves throwing themselves on the surrounding water. White-topped breakers as far as the eye could see.

The weird thing was, most of us had gone to the beach. The unruly vandal wind had been there for us at home, toppling wheelie bins, throwing rubbish around the streets, but we head off to the shingle at eight a.m. I had my swimming things on, just in case.

In mitigation, it’s not unheard of for there to be a fragile dip in the weather at the water’s edge. A low point that escapes the worst of the wind. Of course, that mitigation is blown flat on its face when confronted by a strong north easterly. The north easterly is actually coming from the North Sea, from colder places beyond the wind-battered horizon.

We stood together looked in awe and wonder at the impossible waves. It felt like the sea had had enough of us today, spitting in our faces and trying to push us over onto the beach. There was no discernable sun, but scrumptious sea air engulfed us.

Beach wind can bring comedy. It will almost push you over and almost push you over again. My woolly hat blew off. Then it blew off again and I decided that I would put my hood up over it to hold the hat on. The hood blew down, the hat blew off. I put the hat in my pocket.

There were a small handful of seabirds, mostly heading for shore. A couple off corvids lurking for the yet to come Kittiwake nests. A single cormorant, flying low over the massive waves like an F14 on a practice mission. Perhaps diving low for fish is more productive when the sea churns?

The water temperature today is apparently seven point one degrees. Not too bad by recent standards. Reports say that it will get colder, back between five and six. It seems improbable, but you can actually feel the difference between temperatures in the fives and in the sevens. The spikiness is different, the way that the water plays with your skin when you’re in the sea and when you’re recovering afterwards.

The flag was bunched up like a damp tea cloth. Horizontal at north-north-east. The wind that very nearly pushed us over was nine to twenty four miles an hour with gusts up to forty two miles an hour. It’s the gusts that get you, halt your progress, turn you round.

The sea was almost impossible to photograph. Perhaps a long lens rather than a phone would have caught it? The wind makes it very hard to stand still and you end up with photos that look like a flat sea with surf. The last thing that it looked like in real life.

The gulls were waiting on the back half of the beach looking at the water.