The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

A belated thank you to everyone who came to my talk at the Marine Studios in Margate a week ago, and another thanks to those who also bought a book afterwards.

I arrived an hour early and walked down to the beautiful beach and went for a swim (yes that really is it in the photo). I then dried myself off in the beach car park, with the car radio on as I listened to Andy Murray losing, valiantly, to Rafael Nadal. A more British experience would be hard to imagine. I walked up to the Studios to give the talk, watching a kid go beserk after dropping an ice cream and feeling the sand between my toes.

Whilst very vaguely on the subject of swimming, the Independent invited me to be on their Best 50 swimming spots in the UK panel. The results can be found here.

After an enjoyable private course on Friday – we finished standing in a field looking at Orion, the Plough, Cassiopeia and, of course, Polaris – it was time for a family outing to West Wittering beach early on Saturday.

I adore the Witterings in winter, the barbecue and beach towels may have to stay at home but it is invigorating to get blown along on miles of abandoned sand. In between games of hide and seek amongst the beach huts, games of football on the sticky sand and races to pieces of seaweed, I noticed some interesting patterns in the sand.

This photo shows how there tend to be broad ripples parallel to the coastline itself, but closer inspection reveals more subtle patterns and these can be used to decipher the action of the water and therefore yield more clues to direction. The ripples of sand fan out over the small hills that…

Read More...

The Gooleys are now back from a weekend’s camping in the isle of Purbeck, Dorset. This is a photo I took of some lobster pots stacked up on the beach at Lulworth Cove. Something more substantial and less wannabe arty to follow at some point. Perhaps.

We spent the weekend on Alderney. We went there to muck about on the beaches and we were not disappointed. The water is still fresh at this time of year, but I cannot think of an island with better beaches.

This is a photo taken looking out to the Fort from Longis Beach on the southeastern part of the island. Alderney is famous for its powerful tides and you can see how churned up the water is getting on the left halft of the picture, as it races across the causeway.

In this photo that I took ten days ago of Totland Bay Pier on the Isle of Wight, there is a lot of blue. We become used to thinking of the sky and sea as blue, but in this picture it is easy to see how varied the colours can be. There is gradual shift from blue to off-white in the sky. In the sea there are three quite distinct bands, dark blue of deeper water, green-blue of shallow water and then light brown as the beach itself becomes visible through the water. There are also two other darker shades, where the groyne can be seen underwater and the thin shadow of the pier itself and finally the thin white strips where the tiny waves are breaking.

There is something surreal, perhaps postmodern?, about blogging about a newspaper that is writing about you. Ian Belcher reviewed my course in the Sunday Times Travel section today, you can read it here, but then you might be reading this because you’ve already read his piece… such are the conundrums of modern life…

Back to reality. I am sometimes struck by how different it can feel walking in different directions along the same beach. Often this is because the wind goes from being on your back to being on your face, but there can be more solid reasons. At Climping where I was this morning the shingle is moved gradually and relentlessly eastwards by the waves. This forces it up against the groynes and means that if you walk east you are faced by gentle hills and sharp drops down, but when you turn around you walk down gentle down slopes…

Read More...