Tag Archives: sea

May 04 2024
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Daily Post, Transport

Jacob’s Ladder

Friday 3rd May 2024, 11.10am (day 4,635)

Jacob's Ladder, 3/5/24

Jacob’s Ladder has 699 steps, and rises 602 feet up from Jamestown to the fort above. It was originally built to transport goods, using carts and a mule-powered pulley system. Nowadays it sees traffic from the locals who breeze up and down it as if it were nothing more than a stairway at home, and the occasional visitor, like me, who thinks — yeah, OK, I really should give it a shot. But bear in mind there is only one escape point, at step 285: after that, you are committed. My time up this morning — 13 minutes and 45 seconds, not bad for an ageing geezer. But I am never going down it. Nope, not ever.

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May 01 2024
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

Setting up at the Yacht Club

Wednesday 1st May 2024, 4.55pm (day 4,633)

Yacht Club setup, 1/5/24

Believe me, the St Helena Yacht Club is not as posh a place as it sounds. But it is certainly the best place in town to watch the sun set over the Atlantic, and on Wednesday nights there is a regular food night of some description. In early 2023 it was Taco Night — nowadays it has morphed into Fish Night. Either way, I was there early, and the guy with the impressively pointy beard is still setting up.

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Apr 18 2024
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Daily Post, Landscape

The Swakopmund beach fog

Thursday 18th April 2024, 8.50am (day 4,620)

Swakopmund beach fog, 18/4/24

I was forewarned about the fogs that affect the coast of Namibia. The Benguela current sweeps cold water up from Antarctica, and as it passes the African coast it mixes with the warm air coming off the continent. But just because I understand the climatology doesn’t mean that the actual experience of the fog hasn’t come as a surprise because they really are bloody cold; the mornings and evenings here in Swakopmund have not at all been like one might imagine an African beach holiday, more like Morecambe in November. These two swimmers must be seriously hardy.

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Jan 07 2024
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Daily Post, Landscape

Bait-digging, Swansea beach

Friday 5th January 2024, 3.20pm (day 4,516)

Swansea beach, 5/1/24

I worked out that before today, I had been to 25 of the top 30 cities in the UK ranked by population: as of today I have now been to 26, as I (and Clare) paid a first-ever visit to Swansea this weekend. And among the things I discovered about the second-biggest place in Wales was that it has a superb beach, which seems to stretch for miles. Early January isn’t necessarily the optimal time to visit such a place, but so what?

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Nov 18 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

The Cardiff Bay barrage

Saturday 18th November 2023, 11.35am (day 4,468)

The Cardiff Bay barrage was built in the 1990s, at huge expense, specifically to get rid of what were perceived as unattractive mudflats, and thus prepare the land for colonisation by the Great God Commerce: which seems to have subsequently taken place. It’s not an unattractive piece of engineering, I guess. Out there is the island of Flat Holm, which still counts as Wales, so this isn’t another shot that depicts the land of more than one country. (There have been three of these: two with England and Wales (both around the Dee Estuary), and one with England and France.)

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Jul 16 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

Beauly Firth

Saturday 15th July 2023, 1.55pm (day 4,342)

Beauly Firth, 15/7/23

Let’s permit Scotland to offer up its combination of mountain and seascape one more time before we have to head home. The Beauly Firth is the far end of the Moray Firth; this shot is looking inland, to the Highlands beyond. And yes, somewhere over there it is raining.

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Jul 13 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

Thurso beach

Thursday 13th July 2023, 11.25am (day 4,340)

OK, it’s another beach (after Monday), but Scotland is a country that does very good beaches — they’re just not very warm. This becomes the northernmost picture so far taken in the UK, a position it will retain until I finally make it to Shetland or Orkney. It will probably forever remain the northernmost picture taken on the mainland of Great Britain, at around 58º 36′ N.

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Jul 13 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

Morning run, Cromarty Firth

Wednesday 12th July 2023, 8.55am (day 4,339)

Cromarty Firth run, 12/7/23

More athleticism. Clare is in training and demanded a hill to run up. The tiny settlement of Nigg, on the Cromarty Firth, obliged this morning. The return to the Black Isle region was motivated largely by my desire to get more photographs of it, particularly of this firth thanks to its collection of old oil rigs and vessels that are either mothballed or being decommissioned. It’s proof that industry need not wreck a landscape.

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Mar 12 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

Marazion Beach

Saturday 11th March 2023, 10.25am (day 4,216)

Marazion Beach, 11/3/23

My last full day in Cornwall. Less clement weather as you can see, but all the same, I’d rather have had this than the heavy snow which has hit further north: I’m quite happy to be away from that, thank you very much. A definite ‘sea/beach’ theme has developed, with this being the fifth in a row to feature one or both, but down here, where the island ends, it’s hard to be unaware of the ocean.

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Mar 12 2023
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Daily Post, Transport, Urban scene

Hugh Town, Isles of Scilly

Friday 10th March 2023, 10.45am (day 4,215)

Hugh Town, 10/3/23

A trip out to the furthest south-western extremity of the British Isles (assuming we treat Ireland as separate) — namely the Isles of Scilly, a hundred or so lumps of granite stuck thirty miles off Land’s End, of which five are inhabited. The ‘capital’, Hugh Town, is located on St Mary’s island, and built on a narrow isthmus, which is apparent here thanks to the houses having blue sea behind them as well as in front, which is why I chose this picture — that, and the profusion of coloured things (buoys?) in the sea.

That’s one of the harder-to-reach County Tops bagged as well. There were lots of photos from the day I could have chosen to give an impression of this distant part of my country, but see the other blog for more.

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