beach Archives - The Natural Navigator

First There is a Mountain

August 30, 2019September 20, 2019

Studland Bay artwork

August 12, 2019September 9, 2019

There was a near perfect ripple map on a very windy West Wittering beach yesterday. The different wave patterns on each side of an island…

July 8, 2019July 8, 2019

The ‘step’ is the line where the beach gradient steepens and the water suddenly gets a bit deeper. It is marked by a line of…

April 16, 2019April 16, 2019

The way waves behave is a big subject. But here we’ll look at just one simple aspect, the way the wind shapes breaking waves at…

December 22, 2018December 22, 2018

Swash is the name given to the waves that rush up the beach after a wave has broken. They are intriguing little waves that inhabit…

August 20, 2018November 26, 2018

Thank you to everyone who tuned in to listen to me eulogise Clarence Ellis’ book, The Pebbles on the Beach, on the Today programme on…

August 15, 2018January 21, 2019

The colour of water is determined by: A) What’s under it. B) What’s in it. C) What’s on it. D) And by light levels and…

May 9, 2017January 28, 2019

Whenever you’re on sand or snow, tune in to the direction the most recent winds have been blowing from and you’ll find yourself surrounded by…

October 18, 2016August 6, 2019

When a wave breaks it pushes foamy water up the beach, this is the ‘swash‘. Some of this water flows back down the beach to…