Some enchanted mornings

Friday 2nd May

The long and narrow moss-ridged lane begins to feel like a rare and secret corridor now, sloping up, as it does, in the direction of the sea. It gives us a fix of green, wrapped round like a blanket from top to bottom, side to side. Although the alexander continues to stand tall, it is pallid. The trees have taken over, providing bright green walls and ceiling, a canopy which filters the sun.

It’s widely agreed that there is more than one reason for loving the sun. This week, the warmth and the glow landed on us and the beach was transformed.

Tuesday 29th April, this Tuesday just gone, was spring tide. Spring tides wondrously occur when the planets earth, moon and sun align resulting in a stronger gravitational pull on the oceans than usual (usual is just the moon) and the lowest and highest tides possible.

The alignment has its own most brilliant word - syzygy - clearly an ancient spell of enchantment, a new word to me at least.

They happen after full and new moons and this week, the moon was full on Monday 28th April.

Tuesday and Wednesday saw the very lowest tides possible and they were magical. Sand banks and soft underwater ridges, most commonly part or completely hidden, were out of the water, many like curved walkways, mostly dry then, at the finish of a great length, slinking back under the water again.

Super-low water like this is happy and warm and comforting, if only that it momentarily exposes the bottom of the sea. There are no dead bodies or slimy severed heads under the water, after all, despite what our toes once touched early one dark morning (unless someone cleared them away at the crack of this dawn).

The spring tide coincided with the warmest week of weather that we’ve had so far this year in East Anglia. On Wednesday morning at eight am, the beach temperature was already around twelve degrees.

The previous evening, someone had shared a video of a horse being cantered along a shallow gully between two sand ridges. So perfect it could have been staged for a film. Perhaps it was?

On Wednesday, swimmers that aren’t usually with us appeared. Some opting to swim at seven rather than eight, closer to half five sunrise? Even lower water? The first low within the spring tide was just after seven am. At that time of the morning there was a substantial walk in order to find sea deep enough to swim in.

If felt like a secret summer holiday. The sun shone through a contrail-striped blue sky, people walked or swam closer to the old rig to take a better look at the kittiwakes in full nesting mode. Puck biked along one of the exposed sandbanks, there were canoes and paddle boards and those of us that chose to swim at eight, when the water was on its way in again, did so in a warm-ish shallow pool bordered by dry ridges.

Wednesday was extraordinary among the extraordinary. A rare moment, a magical morning.

By Friday, the planets had re-aligned. Our weather was still weirdly warm, around thirteen degrees on the beach but warmer inland. The north wind had begun to feel noticeable, especially around the coast. There was some cloud filtering the sun.

By the time we reached the beach, the cloud was heavy and high. Great stretches of mostly dark blue cumulous topped a barely discernible slice of yellow tinged with pink between the heavy cloud and the horizon.

Unlike earlier in the week, the sea looked full and more or less normal, although the strong tidal pull was evident in every surface ripple. The gunmetal grey water was once more like the skin of an ancient sea creature, rippling as it moved from horizon to shore.

The first low tide was scheduled for half eight. There was no indication of anything unusual until swimmers began to appear standing on top of the water just a few yards out.

The sandbank, hidden just under the surface, was huge with spreading sides like ramps along which we could walk to its top and stand, feet only in the water, chatting or walking along the now-wet sandy top to have a closer look at the rarely-reached underside of the old rig and the kittiwakes.

The sea was still a thing of wonder.

The northerly breeze was stronger by Friday and it tends to find you when you’re standing above water, damp from the swim out. It wasn’t long before most people walked back down the bank, swam a little and then headed to shore. Water temperature, thanks mostly to having been raised in an unusually warm week, has reached ten point seven degrees.

I stopped to watch the fisherman coming in. Slowly, boat side-on to the beach, a little further south than we were. The side-on approach continued, boat tipping, rocking side-to-side, turning a little, until he had navigated the sand, was still and pointing straight at the shingle.

At this point, he walked to the front of the boat, grabbed his lines and jumped off the front of the bow, carrying them up to the winch at the high point of the beach.

This morning, even when it had finally landed, the fishing boat was tipped at an angle and it was impossible to see how it would make it up the beach. It did, slowly, slowly, straighter and slowly home again.

The kittiwakes appear to hurry with their nesting now, as if they know that it’s the start of May.

If you know someone who’d enjoy reading this (or who regularly uses the word syzygy) please send it to them.