Starfish and brittle star

Friday 13th December 2024

The car says six degrees. The world has been caped in a dull grey filter. It makes the landscape appear slightly grimy, in need of a thorough wipe and shaking off of dust.

There is the occasional slightly paler cloud in places, perhaps the patches that have already had a soapy cloth applied? Although not frozen, outside feels cold. There isn’t much wind, no breeze to blow the dust off or bring warm air in.

We should probably just be grateful for the still air. It is less than a week since the wheelie bins were blown over and blown over again by Darragh. The sea had been impossible. Too rough to swim. Doubly too rough to swim in December.

Some bumpy seas are quite fun to swim in when the weather’s warm. Up and down and round about, riding waves while soaking up the warmth of the sun.

Not in winter. Get stuck under a big wave or knocked over on a cold day when conditions make it impossible to get out reliably or quickly enough, and you can be in real trouble sooner than you realise. Hypothermia doesn’t take long.

At the beach, the sky is mottled grey, the sea moving grey. Matching outfits. There are no sunshine highlights but at least it’s flat enough to be swimmable. Hallelujah.

Sitting changing on the shingle, the temperature is around six degrees. We are spot on for the first high tide. The wind is gentle compared to how it had been, around six mph east-south-east with gusts up to twelve. Not cosy but bearable.

The water temperature however is a flat nine degrees. The sea water has been churned up by both recent storms. The cold stuff from the deep has been mixed up with the few slightly warmer strands that may have been hanging over from earlier months.

My theory is that without the storms, our water temperature might still be in double figures.

There’s also shock from not having swum for a week. No cold conditioning.

All that’s needed now is to find the mental strength to get into into the cold water. And to locate the switch that turns off the internal voice shouting, ‘you must be mad’.

Ouch. I feel a slight chest squeeze, a small acknowledgement like a stiff handshake. Nothing too brutal yet. The scary cold water chest hugs lurk until after Christmas.

Being in the deep sea in December is a skin-pricking delight. The cold water reboots your body and mind in live-action. It doesn’t take long. Just a few minutes. I’m getting out.

My decision isn’t based on the pain of being in the sea, rather an estimation of how long it will take me to warm up once I’m out. Not one of my strong points.

Getting out takes me three goes. I think it was the deep water. Getting back onto the beach isn’t particularly tricky, it just feels as if there was an upward slope underfoot. A ramp to dry land. I needed the help of a wave push not a wave pull to get me up it.

As I finally step out onto the dry shingle, I spot a small perfectly pale blonde five finger starfish on the shore line. It seems like an omen for clean water given that the water hasn’t really looked clean at all. Tufts of greenery had been floating on top of the grey waves, most-often a sign that a soft part of a nearby cliff has come down and washed into the sea.

I reach my friends, declare the starfish sighting and almost immediately go back to find it. Nowhere to be seen. In all likelihood washed back into the sea by the wave after the wave that helped me up.

Bobble Hat guy asks me what I’m looking for and looks too, soon pointing a brittle star, an ancient creature composed of a beige disk about the size of a pound coin, with legs the width and looseness of knitting wool. Not the same thing at all.

I’m now cold and my fingers perform badly at the basic tasks required to get dry clothes on quickly.

The gulls have been darting and shrieking all the time that we’ve been there.

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