Tag Archives: beach

mini shells

My Walk this Week 131 – Swansea Bay Shells

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The shells have it in my walk this week on the beach in Swansea Bay – big ones, little ones and multiply connected ones. A beautiful day and some much needed space – there would have been peace as well if it hadn’t been for a light aircraft performing aerobatics overhead. But that was quite an interesting sound, and anyway, as I walked down the beach the sound of the waves masked that in the sky. I’ll post the soundscape on Friday as usual.

multiple shells

One of the best things about Swansea Bay is the expanse of beach when the tide is out and that space was just what I wanted on this morning. There were plenty of other people about enjoying the sunshine and sand (and indeed the blue sky above), but none of that hemmed in any individual and everyone was able to wander the shore in relative solitude and enjoy it in their own way.Continue reading→

Worm's Head, Gower

My Walk this Week 129 – Rhossili from the Archives

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My walk this week shows images from my archive and a walk along Rhossili Down at the end of the Gower Peninsula in South Wales.

looking down on the bay

For all the changes in environmental circumstances from day to day or even hour to hour, these photos from 2014 cannot show any potential differences in the underlying structure and general appearance of the place. The pace of change on a geological time scale is not the same as our lives and although it is true that we sometimes see rocks fall from a cliff or even cliffs collapse as a result of erosion from the sea, the overall changes can be almost imperceptible.Continue reading→

red shattered rock

Coastal Curiosities 1 – Arranged and Sculpted Naturally

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This week I am focusing on some of the coastal curiosities I found along my walks in Scotland last month. The wind and sea had been sculpting, as they naturally do, but people were also evident in the arrangements they left behind in the form of what appeared to me like a miniature straggling sea defence. A sea defence that was set higher on the beach than the highest tide level, at least for a few days, thus ensuring they would stay there for a while and allow me to photograph them in different lights.

miniature defences

The low sun in the evening also sculpted the appearance of the beach into a Martian landscape and the my daughter pointed me towards the Martian colours revealed in a rock formation split by erosion. This revealed a measure of timeContinue reading→

sea and light perspective

Scottish Seas 2 – Evening Tide

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Whether it is the ebb or the flow of the tide, the sea has a gentle gradient to cover in this part of South West Scotland. That does not always mean the waves are gentle but on this occasion the roughest it got can be seen in the third image of the sequence below.

evening ebb

The appearance of the weather in that image is exaggerated by the heavy grain effect I gave it. I like the effect but it tells a lie about the conditions, making them appear less favourable than they wereContinue reading→

Sea lines

Light and Lines

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By the end of my walk this week on Aberavon Beach the light had brightened to the point of dazzlement. We didn’t have a blue sky but the sunlight was bleaching in its brightness and the heat was clearly making a dip in the sea an attractive option for many.

a day on the beach

Having walked the length of the beach, we turned around and walked back along the promenade where I found myself noticing some of the lines and anglesContinue reading→

starfish on the move

Safe For Swimming – Flags and Patterns On the Beach

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I liked the bright red and yellow flags on Aberavon Beach when taking this week’s walk there. They denote an area where it is safe to swim but I don’t think the child in this picture, walking determinedly up the beach, had been swimming.

A determined stride

This wasn’t the only young one on the beach – there were plenty of other children running around of course, but also starfish on the move. The patterns made in the sand by the starfish weren’t the only ones eitherContinue reading→

Enjoying the sunshine

My Walk this Week – An Angle On the Beach

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My walk this week is along Aberavon Beach on the eastern side of Swansea Bay. It was warm but overcast when we started out and I suppose that might account for the clothing that one of these beach anglers was wearing.

anglers angling

The sun soon showed up, however, and justified the clothing of the others on the beach as well as their activities.

Aberavon has an expansive and beautiful beach but it is slightly strange to see mechanical monsters seemingly so close on the skyline.Continue reading→

Grass in the Bay

Natural and Man-Made

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My walk this week took me through Swansea University’s Bay Campus to the open view it has of the expansive Swansea Bay. The combination of the natural and man-made had a number of crossover points – one of these was how cold it was with the wind chill coming off the sea, exposed as I was both in the open and amongst the buildings.

Beach Perspective

Other overlaps of the natural and man made came in the birdlife and young trees planted around the buildings, the moat-like sea defences (I suspect that, one day, these will not be enough), the rusting structure of an old disused outlet pipe onto the beach, and the industrial view looking east to Port Talbot.Continue reading→