What could the Pacific Islanders possibly share with the Bedouin? Or the Vikings with someone going for a walk in an English wood? All these navigators share views of the sun, moon and stars, but all will also have a relationship with the wind. The wind sculpts the land and sea all over the world, it leaves its marks wherever we care to look for them. The swell of the oceans, the shape of the dunes and the curve of the exposed trees all betray their intimate relationship with the wind.

Here are some small sand sculptures that I photographed among the dunes on West Wittering beach a few weeks ago. The swell of the Pacific and the dunes of the Sahara are not so foreign to the forms on this West Sussex beach after all.

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 are exposed at low water. There are tight-packed parallel ridges where the water action is uniform, but a more confused system of diamonds where incoming water meets the returning undercurrent from earlier waves. All of these patterns can be used by walkers in low visibility to orientate themselves, if the sound of the water is not helping, but they can also be used by divers searching for a clue to the direction of coast in low visiblity.