Having learnt a new language of tide height, wind, swell direction and daylight hours, Malcolm Anderson’s year was shaped by the rise and fall of the Atlantic.
February
VARIABLE 4 OR LESS, BECOMING NORTHEAST 4 TO 6 IN SOLE, THEN BECOMING SOUTH 3 TO 5 LATER EVERYWHERE. IN SOLE ROUGH, OCCASIONALLY VERY ROUGH IN WEST, ELSEWHERE MODERATE OR ROUGH, BUT SLIGHT IN EAST LUNDY. FAIR. GOOD
We’re moving on again. An opportunity has come up to head to the coast for work. Up to North Devon and the fierce Atlantic shore, back to my teenage playground.
Wincanton has been kind to us both, we’re not leaving because of anything it’s done. We’ve been welcomed in by the regulars at Uncle Tom’s on the high street and have loved exploring Penselwood. The bagels at Hooga are divine. Leaving casts a small shadow of sadness but as we begin the tortuous process of buying, selling, packing and eventually moving the excitement builds.
April
WEST BECOMING CYCLONIC, 4 TO 6. MODERATE OR ROUGH, OCCASIONALLY VERY ROUGH AT FIRST IN SOUTHWEST FASTNET. RAIN OR SQUALLY SHOWERS. GOOD, OCCASIONALLY POOR
We’re out of Somerset, but not quite ready to move into the new Devon house. All of our stuff is piled in spare rooms and a storage locker in Bideford, and we are ensconced in the silent embrace of a friend’s farm house in West Dorset while it sits empty during probate. This is a space I grew up in, I know every room by heart. Every baler twine decorated field gate and every corrugated iron stoppered hedge gap.
It’s a bittersweet feeling knowing this is probably the last time I will ever step foot in Blagdon Farm as by summer it will be in the hands of a social media celebrity chef/author.
Every tick of the clock over the fire and every moaning breath of southwesterly breeze catching the roof eaves is loaded with memories and tinged with long faded laughter and no small amount of sadness. I love it here with all my heart.
On the landing, next to the creaky floorboard by the bathroom door is a very old faded oil painting of two cats. We’ve no idea of its history other than it was hanging in the same place when the farm was last sold and has been here ever since. It’s been packaged up and will be hanging in Devon soon, a little slice of a creaky old Dorset comfort blanket.
May
VARIABLE 2 TO 4 AT FIRST EXCEPT IN SHANNON, OTHERWISE NORTH OR NORTHWEST 4 TO 6. SMOOTH OR SLIGHT IN IRISH SEA, SLIGHT OR MODERATE ELSEWHERE, OCCASIONALLY ROUGH LATER IN FASTNET. FOG PATCHES AT FIRST IN LUNDY AND IRISH SEA, OTHERWISE RAIN OR SHOWERS. MODERATE OR GOOD, OCCASIONALLY VERY POOR AT FIRST IN LUNDY AND IRISH SEA
Our lives have become dictated by tide times. Yes there’s work calendars and shop opening hours, there’s daybreak and sunset, breakfast and dinner but the day is increasingly shaped for us by the rise and fall of the Atlantic.
Sandymere dog walks at anything up to two hours before a high tide, sand dunes or coast paths and oceanic rainforest fragments in steep sided valleys when closer to high. Catching the surf as it pushes in towards high if the winds are light or offshore, chasing bass on the barnacled ledges as the gullies fill in a couple hours after low. There’s a daily rhythm to this way of life, something beyond the shifting seasons.
Tide height, wind, swell direction and daylight hours are our new language.
June
WEST OR SOUTHWEST 3 TO 5, OCCASIONALLY 6 AT FIRST. MODERATE, OCCASIONALLY ROUGH AT FIRST. RAIN. MODERATE OR GOOD
Summer is here with a vengeance but as the chilly rain blasts horizontally across the sweep of Sandymere I’m still as in love with the ocean as I was as a child. Being next to it every day isn’t diminishing the feeling of freedom and the beautiful headspace that comes from it, no matter what the rest of the day holds.
I admit I miss the chalkstreams but time here has given me the space to realise that for the last few years I’d pretty much stopped fishing them anyway. I’d spent almost four decades around the chalk and now, I have to own up that all I see in latter years is issues. The low flows, the sewage fungus, the glowing gravels covered in silt, decimated insect populations and the ever increasing fishing pressure.
I’d walk the river with the rod made up but most of the time not even cast; just guiltily feeling like I haven’t done enough to protect these old friends. Haven’t shouted enough, haven’t fought for them hard enough despite seeing the creeping damage slowly strangling them. Is it too late to fix them? No, but the only thing that will get our rivers out of this mess is a combination of getting everyone to care about their local rivers enough to affect their voting behaviour and a bloody big legal stick to hit the regulators, polluters and government with.
In short, we need something of a revolution.
September
VARIABLE 4 OR LESS. SMOOTH OR SLIGHT IN IRISH SEA, ELSEWHERE SLIGHT OR MODERATE. SHOWERS, PERHAPS THUNDERY, FOG PATCHES. MODERATE OR GOOD, OCCASIONALLY VERY POOR
As a teenager I surfed a lot. I was never very good but I loved it. For the last twenty years I just haven’t done it much despite keeping a longboard in the garage for all that time. Since moving back to the coast I’ve gotten into the water to surf or swim at every opportunity I can. The years have not been kind. Paddling hurts, I catch my feet when I pop up and flail about as others glide gracefully along clean wave faces. Even on relatively small days I struggle to get out back behind the constant stream of Westward Ho! white water, emerging some days an hour later having done nothing but take a battering. I can feel change, even if it is ludicrously slow but my lack of fitness and surfing ability is enormously frustrating. There are moments however that remind me of the beauty of it all.
The sea fret has blown in around me, blurring out a warm summer day with a small clean swell. I’ve paddled out back and the beach shimmers and vanishes in front of my eyes. The sun ghosts through the murk, occasionally casting odd light patches over the water surface. Noise is strangely muted as if it’s snowing heavily.
I can see gulls dive bombing the surface a little towards Zulu Bank and the mouth of the combined flow of the Taw and Torridge. The light shifts again and the water around me turns jade green, beams of light shine like torches through the water and I can see the sandy bottom clearly six feet below.
Suddenly there’s a silver flash at the corner of my vision and before I can focus my legs dangling below the board are surrounded by thousands and thousands of sand eels. The water shimmies, an aquatic kaleidoscope, then I have gulls crashing into the surface around me, close enough to touch. It’s chaos for a minute that seems to last an hour and then the light warps, the sand eels move on and I’m back bobbing out there on my own. Just the sound of the water slapping against the bottom of the board for company.
October
WEST BECOMING CYCLONIC, 4 TO 6. MODERATE OR ROUGH, OCCASIONALLY VERY ROUGH AT FIRST IN SOUTHWEST FASTNET. RAIN OR SQUALLY SHOWERS. GOOD, OCCASIONALLY POOR
Out at low tide. Sandymere lake has filled up where it sits behind the shingle bank and water is leaching out of the sand covering the expanse towards the river mouth with a coat like mercury. Clouds reflect in the surface scurry underfoot. The weather has been ridiculously warm of late, really doesn’t feel much like autumn yet and despite the climate anxiety this drives, we have thoroughly enjoyed being able to get out for swims during lunch time when working from home. The tourists have mostly gone home and the beach is returned to a splendidly empty space.
The first of the big long period Atlantic swells have been piling in and as I walk the coast path I’m starting to see some pretty significant remote breaks that are worth watching, even though I’m beginning to accept that I will likely never be young enough or fit enough to surf these kinds of secret reefs and points as I did when young.
November
CYCLONIC BECOMING NORTHWEST 5 TO 7, INCREASING GALE 8 AT TIMES. MODERATE AT FIRST IN FAR NORTH, OTHERWISE ROUGH OR VERY ROUGH, BUT BECOMING HIGH IN SOUTH. RAIN THEN THUNDERY SHOWERS. GOOD, OCCASIONALLY POOR
The year is almost done, we’re sliding towards Christmas and the new year.
I’m up on the coast path between Bude and the secret-squirrel dishes of Morwenstoe. It’s absolutely howling up here, I can barely stand in the full force of the wind but for now it is at least dry. The dog is shattered, my legs are a little wobbly from the rise and fall of the path and at home dinner is in the slow cooker ready for us.
What a year it’s been. For the first time in many years I honestly can’t think of anything I’d change, apart from maybe winning the lottery. We are where we’re meant to be and it feels good. More than content; complete.