West Shore

The tide is further out than we have ever seen it. The sign warns - 
 ‘Danger: off-shore sandbanks get cut off. Stay within the limits of the beach’, 
but just where does beach end and sea begin? It’s just impossible to tell. 

We walk along this far extreme of land, estuary mud squelching, our footprints leaving unsavoury puddles of yellowing water in our wake. This is a bed of marooned sea-creatures, barnacled stones and long-empty shells, all sounding a continuous draining, seeping gurgle - the only sound but for the plaintive cries of gulls. 

In places, dark wet boulders are left stranded in vast pools of standing water. Dark and still, they form a perfect mirror for the patterns of a sky now tinted gentle shades of gold and palest pink.  And in the distance ink-black mountains meet the sea in grey-blue haze.