The force and scale of the storm waves was terrifying

8th January 2024

Winter has blown in. Not the pretty postcard snow and silver sugar dusting. Wind. East Anglian winter has arrived. The take-the-skin-off your-face viking wind straight from the east and the north.

Suddenly, it is three degrees and grizzly, drizzly dark until after eight.

We have up till now been spoilt. Beach temperatures of over six degrees, bathed in soft south westerlies. It hasn’t really felt like December or January at all. The water temperature has been around eight degrees for implausibly ages.

Apparently, it’s still over eight, but this morning, no one would know.

I was only a couple of steps from the car when I felt my hat about to blow off. The forecast was for a steady north easterly. By the time I walked up to the beach, the flag at the back was straining straight out, pulled to the point of ripping by an easterly wind straight off the sea.

I crunched up onto the shingle, not too close to the water, fearful that I’d be blown over and lose my phone before I’d had a chance to take a picture. It was a challenge to hold it still. I wobbled and stepped backwards, instinctively steadying myself, inadvertently spoiling photo after photo. The spray from the water was hitting me. Sometimes sea spray, occasionally tiny frozen balls of frost.

The sky was like a tight layer of blue cotton wool, packed densely, with an occasional strand of light poking out between the adjoining parts. The clouds were low, keeping tight pressure on the fierce sea.

I was surprised how scary it looked. There is something monumental about a storm on water. For someone who loves the sea enough to get in most of the year, you’d assume that I’d just watch with interest. But the force and scale of the waves were completely terrifying, breaking, tall and white-edged way beyond our sandbank, then rolling in, seemingly growing as they came.

Many of the largest broke not far from the shore line, bouncing great sheets of water and endless sprays of surf directly in front of the beach. They didn’t appear to have a natural margin like those that swimmers get used to. Low tides come in so far, changing tides can wet your feet. These had a will of their own.

My head was full of images of tankers rocking and rolling on inpossible waves, of galleons losing their cargoes at sea. Any number of ocean-based disaster movies, calls of ‘mayday’ and ‘man overboard’ and ‘lost at sea’. Crash and slam, the waves continued as the wind screamed at me and did its best to push me over.

I laughed a little at the absurdity of being blown over onto my back like a beetle on the beach. Mostly, I think I resented the raging sea because it had usurped the place in which I could enjoy a Monday morning dip, cold or not.

I managed to stay upright as I walked away from the storm. The gulls seemed to be driven mad by the fierce water, great flocks of them filling the skies, swooping and swirling.