About the seaside

As summer recedes and autumn sets in, I’d like to set down a few thoughts about the seaside.

For many, summer holidays are inconceivable without the seaside. This has always puzzled me as it seems to me there are plenty of other attractive destinations, not least in the mountains. Don’t get me wrong, in the right circumstances I enjoy the seaside, but not to the exclusion of everywhere else.

To state the obvious, the seaside is merely where the land meets the sea, and while the sea is mostly the same, the land varies considerably producing a great variety of seasides. In short, some seaside is town and some is country. As I live in a city, my idea of a holiday is to go to the country, so I like my seaside quiet and picturesque, not lined with high-rises and packed out. There are some fine old towns and ports on the coast which are a delight, but there are also plenty of purpose built modern resorts which I find a complete turn-off and whose ugliness and heaving crowds make me want to flee.

When I was a boy we used at first to go to Filey on the Yorkshire coast. There are some rather hilarious black and white photos in old family albums of us braving the chill air and chiller water and often looking quite miserable. My mother (who had grown up in the tropics) eventually decreed that that was enough of that and so we ventured South to the sunnier climes of.... Devon and Cornwall. It must have been sunnier as I can remember a horribly painful case of sunstroke one year. I did like the big sandy dunes though.
Then in the late sixties came the first package tours and we became adepts of the Balearics which I fondly remember as my first taste of “abroad”. What was good was that my parents liked to rent a Seat 500 and explore, looking for more isolated beaches away from the hotel strip. It wasn’t that hard to find them in those days.
When I was 18, Lari and I went on a six week back-packing and island-hopping holiday in Greece. The defining moment was ten days spent with our tent planted under some pines on Karpathos on the long and deserted beach about twenty minutes stroll from the main town. We would roll out of our sleeping bags and run down into the water, then return and sit on two beaten up beach chairs we had found and contemplate our next move. Life got very slow. There was one main ferry a week; after seven days it hove into sight three hours earlier than expected. After some deliberation we decided to miss it because we couldn’t be bothered to pack up quickly. We were quite happy where we were.
After that I didn’t go to the seaside much, apart from the odd day, for about ten years and I can’t say I particulalry missed it.
Clara, however, grew up near the sea, so once we were together the seaside again became a regular fixture in my summers.

I said earlier that the sea is mostly the same, but that’s not really true. There are two kinds of sea, typified in Europe by the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean.
The ocean is the sea of endless breakers, the elemental roar of nature, big tidal movements, tangy ion-charged air, long sandy beaches. The Mediterranean is usually much tamer, more the placid blue backdrop.
It’s fabulous to stroll by the powerful ocean at any time of year and lose yourself in the presence of the steady force of nature, the constant movement of the waves, the surge of the surf. However, for me the main point of going to the seaside in the summer is to swim. Here I have a problem with the ocean which sometimes is just too dangerous to swim in. At the most you can have fun jumping up and down in the waves while being careful to stay with in your depth or fairly close to the shore so as not to be carried away by the current. So I prefer the Mediterranean when it is as flat as a millpond and you can swim out a long way without much risk, being caressed by the refreshing water and absorbing the rich colours and playing sunlight.

For many people sand is a must. Although I enjoy building sand-castles as much as the next man, I actually prefer a pebble beach to a sand beach. I don’t like the way sand just gets everywhere and sticks to your feet, ends up in your undies, in your sandwiches and even in your sheets at night scratching your sunburn. Give me the clean feel of pebbles or rock any time. Nor do I like the way sand churns up and makes the water murky; I like my sea water crystal clear and transparent. Also I can’t abide walking out miles only to still be waist-deep in the water.

My ideal beach is a Mediterranean pebbly cove with clear and calm water, with very few people about and shade at the back of it.
There are two places you will usually find me at a beach: in the water or in the shade. Having had my share of sunburn and even sunstroke, I take care not to over-expose my body to the sun. I really couldn’t care less what colour my body is, the only bits of it people are normally going to see are my face and forearms which are habitually tanned anyway from outdoor exposure from cycling and walking. In fact my favourite time at the beach is late afternoon: the water has warmed up, you're not going to get burned by the sun, it’s getting quieter as people leave and the evening light suffuses everything with glowing colour.

Beaches are often quite uncomfortable places and I am amused by the fact that fantasy photos of tropical beaches with coconut trees are so often touted as being paradise on earth. In reality beaches can easily get too hot without enough shade; or too windy for comfort; the sand can become an irritant; there may well be biting insects about; there are frequently the leavings of other less than civically minded beach users; they can get too crowded and noisy with someone else’s vile taste in music; the sea can get too rough or be dirtied by algae, floating plastic or worse oil; periodically there are invasions of jelly-fish and so on. In fact the same place can change radically from one day to the next, let alone from year to year. There’s a lot that can easily go wrong with a beach; so if you’ve found a nice one on the right day, it’s good to make the most of it while it lasts.

A beach I have particulalry enjoyed recently is the one pictured above at Dubovica on the Croatian island of Hvar. It’s a fifteen minute walk down a steep path from where you park, which keeps the numbers down. The setting is quite beautiful with a big old house dominating the rocks on one side and a cluster of small houses of a mainly abandoned hamlet, one of which serves as a modest eatery. There are few hundred metres of pebbly beach between two rocky promontories wih a few shady trees at the back. The swimming is to die for, wonderful clean and clear water with plenty of fish below the surface for those who like to snorkel (which I do only a little) and some interestingly shaped eroded rocks and even caves further out along the coast.. The view looking back to land is fine dominated by a large crag above the valley which ends at the beach. It all changes colour as the sun moves round. It’s a lovely spot which epitomizes what I like best about the seaside. It’s the kind of place I can happily spend a few days, mainly swimming, reading a bit in between or just contemplating the scene and maybe having a go at painting it. In the evening it’s time to enjoy some fish for dinner then go for a stroll in the old town by the harbour.

Yes, the seaside is not a bad place to be to relax in the summer.