Well away from dry land worry

4th October 2024

Visible then invisible spiderwebs knit the grass in the verges in bright sky shadows. We’re heading blindly towards the sun in the hope of the first swim in a week. It’s hard to emphasise strongly enough how much my body misses being submerged in the sea.

The sea becomes like a healing balm, tough rather than tame. There’s nothing about an October sea that is smooth like a spa pool or a gentle salt water plunge. It’s full on sea water with waves and wispy bits that wash up against you and occasionally swim away. It’s not somewhere to lose concentration and drift into a meditative state.

A warm still day in August can be like a health spa. Then the North Sea becomes a place to drift off, when the water is still and the air is warm and the sky a uniform blue.

Not today. Today, from the high shingle bank before the beach proper, the sky and the sea look enormous. Winter colours: purples and oranges have appeared. The sun, peeping its early morning face through broken clouds had dumped a container full of bright silver sprinkles in a deep pool against the horizon from which a pathway had dribbled nearly to the shoreline, blown by the east south easterly which is straight in our faces.

We’ve been grounded again and again by the north easterly storm fronts. Days when we could stand and only watch the rough sea. Days when it wasn’t even worth coming to the beach. Today was different. The sea looks magnificent, big green autumn waves topped with silver against an impossibly dappled sky.

The wind had changed, the sun shone, the rugged determination of the swimming gang (half a dozen this morning - summer swimmers already in decline) is complete. We’re going in. It’s a little tricky. We’re going in.

Most of the others (still sans the Canadian), are the other side of the rather crash-banging shoreline when Cousin and I start to get changed. They’ve reached stage two and are swimming alongside one another, laughing.

The water temperature is just under sixteen degrees. It’s not properly cold yet, nothing flinches and nothing spikes the hairs on your forearms. It’s delightful, utterly delightful.

We’re a couple of hours after the first low tide. It means that the water is deep enough to properly swim in, but not so deep that with a bit of reaching, you can’t touch your toes on the bottom.

The process of getting in to the sea is a bit like this. Stage one - very frothy, quite daunting waves that break on the beach. These are the edge of the October North Sea, the gateway to the kingdom. The challenge is to get through them if you want to swim.

Quite often these shoreline breakers look worse than they are. This morning not so much. They were hefty, I miss-judge my passage through the stage one gateway to the kingdom and end up with a facefull of seawater. Nothing hurty or harmful, just a soaking wet face. Instead of smoothly jumping up and over the incoming breaking wave, I jumped most of the way up it and it broke on my face. Sniggering concern from those around me.

The second stage in the process is relatively smooth. You’re passed the tricky gateway and you can swim around, a little up and down (it’s the sea) but no great problem. The challenging part of this stage is the current. This morning, the sea is pulling to the north. If you don’t pay attention, say you’re focussed on chatting and celebrating your return to the sea, you’re hundreds of yards from your pals and have been given the unenviable task of swimming back to them against the pull.

The third stage, further out, is optional. A senior level that you opt for if you’re a very good swimmer, have loads of energy and can be bothered to swim against the wind and tide into waves that are guaranteed to break on or close to your head. You must be up for a challenge, in other words, not simply full of joy and grateful just to be there after a week away.

I was full of the joy of swimming in the sea and grateful just to be there after a week away, with sunshine on my face and a head so wave-vigilant, it had not a single tiny space left for fear of conflict or focus on the world of dry land.

Soon enough, it’s time to make the decision to leave the enchanted kingdom. I turn, swim towards the beach and face the level one entry waves from the other direction. I topple over quickly but well, conscious of the wave behind me, in a position to use its energy to push me up the beach. Push up and stand. The east wind feels chill on wet skin.

We leave the beach beside one another admiring the post-storm beach drifts and high tide line, an assortment of delights that have been left there by the rough seas and now have to wait to be washed back or for the water to be that high again. It will happen in the autumn.

Great scatterings of tiny muscles, some open some closed, like glazed beads that have fallen from an expensive necklace, lumps of coal from forgotten Tilbury barges, cork smiley faces that long ago fell from the lines of sailing ships, ropes, fishing lines, dead fish scraps, galleon planks with peg holes big enough to push a finger through (the boatbuilder boringly points out that wooden sea craft were still being made after the 1960s) seaweed scraps, strange universes of sea tangles among the shingle.

post-storm tide line

For a moment the harsh world has been washed away.