CLICK ON THE IMAGE FOR A SHORT VIDEO OF WAVES AND REFLECTION PATTERNS
Waves washing onto a seashore rock ledge, with dynamic patterns of reflected light each time the water retreats.
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Waves breaking on the rock ledge at Winspit, Dorset, UK, on the Jurassic Coast where stone was quarried from the cliffs in times gone by and loaded onto boats.
CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW FOR A SHORT VIDEO OF THE WAVES
COPYRIGHT JESSICA WINDER 2011
All Rights Reserved
The waves breaking on the man-made rock ledge at Winspit, Dorset, UK on the Jurassic Coast, where stone was quarried long ago and loaded straight onto boats.
CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW FOR A SHORT VIDEO OF THE WAVES
COPYRIGHT JESSICA WINDER 2011
All Rights Reserved
CLICK ON THE PICTURE ABOVE TO START THE SHORT VIDEO CLIP
Chesil Beach on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast makes a magnificent sight with its huge bank of graded pebbles. However, the quality of the experience on a visit to Chesil Beach is auditory as well as visual.
Viewing this short movie clip with the sound switched off, the waves have a simple hypnotic, somewhat tantalising, effect as you wait for the appearance of each new embryonic wave crest to emerge and crash…….
…….but turn the volume full up on this video and you will get some idea of the noise generated, even on a calm day, by the sea on the pebble beach – the crash of the waves on the shore and the following tremendous scraunching sound as the pebbles are dragged, rubbing and scraping against each other, back towards the sea by the receding waves. On rougher days, the noise can be totally overwhelming.
A walk on a fine sunny day along the Chesil Bank on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast is a wonderful, if tiring, experience even if you only travel a few of its 17 miles length.
All the senses are assailed.
Beautiful views, in strong reflecting light, of the pebble beach, the seafoam-flecked blue-green sea, and pale blue cloudless sky. The squint of sun on your face and in your eyes.
The feel of the slipping, sliding pebbles beneath your feet – the ache in your muscles after you have been walking for five hours on the shingle. The warmth of sun-baked smooth pebbles in your hand.
The all-encompassing roar as the sea crashes ashore, flinging yet more stones onto the terraced banks. The scream of thousands of pebbles as they are dragged back under water by the retreating waves. The gulls.
A walk in this fabulous place can bring rewards of spiritual as well as physical well-being.
P.S. Quiddles Cafe at the end of the promenade in Chesil Cove is a great place for a well-earned refreshment break at the end of the beach walk – or any other time!
COPYRIGHT JESSICA WINDER 2011
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Rhossili Bay on the Gower Peninsula, South Wales, UK, is a beautiful place.
COPYRIGHT JESSICA WINDER 2011
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When stormy seas and stronge surges are driven hard by forceful onshore winds, the surf is whipped into foam that flies from the wave crests; and waves crashing on the beach spread the foam onto the shore. The constant wind last October pushed a thin layer of white froth in ever-moving, ever-changing, transient scalloped patterns for hundreds of metres across the vast wet acres of Rhossil sand – until at last the iridescent bubbles of froth piled up in heaps on the higher parts of the seashore. At Spaniard Rocks there was dramatic textural contrast between the delicate and ephemeral sea foam and the hard smooth enduring limestone rocks which the foam decorated.
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There is something very uplifting about the sun sparkling on the sea. To hear the waves breaking on the pebbles. To watch the brine being sucked back through the shingle as the wave retreats. To see flecks of white foam create lacey patterns on the surface of the water and the seashore. Each beach, tide, and season bring different rhythms, sounds, and designs. Here are some images that try to capture that experience at Lyme Regis in Dorset one sunny spring day in April.
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Every tide seems to leave a new range of sand ripple patterns on the beach at Rhossili, Gower. This is the second in a series of photographs of the sand designs recorded over four days in early April 2010.
Click here for more posts about SAND in Jessica’s Nature Blog.
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