My Walk this Week – Swansea Bay 360

Posted on 08/08/201606/08/2016 by Alastair

My walk this weak is in Swansea Bay on the beach in front of Crymlin Burrows and Swansea Uni Bay Campus will reveal what may be turning into an obsession with sand.

The tide was as far out as I have ever seen it and as I stood in the middle of its seemingly vast expanse and turned around the full 360 degrees I could see that the sand in this part of the bay is much more sculpted by the tide than it is in front of the city itself. This is not revealed much in these panoramic shots but I will post some of the patterns created in the sand through the week.

The soundscape of the beach is quite different to the wild blast of wind blowing on Colwyn Bay in my walk last week. Listen below to the ambience with the occasional distant sound of birds or voices from a small group of people and the faint backdrop of traffic.

Swansea Bay Ambience

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Swansea Bay – Mumbles

Swansea Bay – Hills

Swansea Bay Campus

Swansea Bay – Port Talbot

Dark Sea and Weathered Fence

Posted on 06/08/201601/08/2016 by Alastair

With the wild wind and dark sea on my walk along the beach at Colwyn Bay this week, it was with some relief that I finally passed alongside the safety fence around the dilapidated pier and up off the beach. In fact the weather was exhilarating, all the more so because it didn’t rain and wasn’t so rough as to make it too difficult to contend with.

Dark Sea and Weathered Fence

Colwyn Bay Wind Clatter

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Dark Sea and Weathered Fence

Triple Columns

Pier Structure

Fence Structure

Beach Exit

Patterns of Natural Sand Art

Posted on 05/08/201601/08/2016 by Alastair

The wind on my walk this week on the beach at Colwyn Bay had been going to town (so to speak and literally!) when it comes to creating patterns. Not just the wind of course – its take the combination of wind and sea to create these particular patterns. In the first image they appear to have been brushing each others hair while in the second there has been more apparent friction with the sand ripples developing a multitude of blisters

Sand Hair

Sand Blisters

Sand Drift and Textures on the Beach

Posted on 04/08/201601/08/2016 by Alastair

The sand in Colwyn Bay was filling more than the gaps between rocks and it wasn’t long before my shoes were filled as well. Where the surface sand had dried it was easily blown by the wind, creating a strange sense of movement on solid ground. The sand drift smoothed out textures as it caught on rocks and other beach features and appeared as a haze higher up the beach as it flowed across a concrete groyne.

Sand Drift

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Wind blown sand

Sand Tangle

Sand Drift

Sand Haze

Tilting at the Wind

Posted on 03/08/201601/08/2016 by Alastair

No tilting at windmills here – just tilting at the wind as I nearly get blown off my feet. The power of the wind and the sea is not imaginary and it is remarkable that the youngest member of the family looking out to the horizon in the second image below isn’t being rolled up the beach like the foam of the waves.

On the gentle incline of Colwyn Bay beach the waves may not be very big, but that doesn’t mean the weather is any less wild. A number of the photos I took that day had an horizon line in danger of falling off the edge but whilst it is easy enough to correct this, leaving the first image below as it is helped to emphasise the nature of that environment at that time.

Tilting to the Wind

Looking out to sea

Sea foam

Paragliders – Colours in the Sky

Posted on 02/08/201630/07/2016 by Alastair

It was a perfect day for my walk this week at Colwyn Bay . . . if you like the wind! There are those that will take full advantage of the wind every time, such as paragliders. I spotted these two the moment I stepped onto the seafront and as I walked towards them, it was difficult to pay attention to the rest of my surroundings. The mesmerising entertainment of their aerial acrobatics was quite a distraction.

Colours in the Sky

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Paragliders

Colours in the Sky

Paraglider

Paragliders

Paragliders in the surf

My Walk this Week – Windy Day in Colwyn Bay

Posted on 01/08/201630/07/2016 by Alastair

My walk this week takes me back a couple of months to a working visit to Colwyn Bay on the north coast of Wales. It was a fresh Spring day and the wind was blowing strong. I think the image below describes the conditions perfectly.

Whether or not I develop a StillWalks video from all the material I recorded on this short walk along the beach remains to be seen. If I do, it will not be one of the relaxing ones – more invigorating I think!

The off shore wind farm seen on the horizon of the first shot below is an interesting feature, sometimes there and sometimes not! Depending on the light (constantly changing on this particular day), the turbines can become almost completely invisible or present complex repeating patterns as they shine with reflected sunlight.

Running into the wind

Windy Day in Colwyn Bay

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Abstract Concrete

Glimpse of the bay

Running into the wind

Crossing to the sea

Looking Over Corris – Reviewing the Walk

Posted on 31/07/201625/07/2016 by Alastair

Back to my car again and looking over Corris where I have been walking this week, I was hopeful that the rain that was still falling at 5.30 AM had finished for the day and that I would be able to climb the mountain for my StillWalks production walk.

As it happens, it did not rain again but the route I ended up taking up the mountain was not my original planned path and was fairly arduous. On top of that (or the mountain), the mist came down and so the video I produce from it will be a “Misty Mountain Walk”.