Burnham Overy Staithe

… again…
Another very high tide and early swim with my coffee and marmalade sandwich. There was a terrific current. The air was full of various dragonflies on my way back. Called in on C afterwards and we spent the afternoon catching up and walked down to Bank Hole for a late swim once the tide had ripped out (extra). I’ve was always wary of of it when I was little…we called it Dead Man’s Hole and Kevin Crossley-Holland’s poem sums it up well …

Quite - Kevin Crossley-Holland

No one knows.
 
Or, rather, everyone knows
but each tells a quite different tale.
 
Moored Man listens.
He sleeps with one eye open,
gauzy with death-mist.
He who hears the artillery
of popping bubbles, beetles tap-dancing
and the shooting scooters,
listens.
 
They were home on leave.
They were Home Guards.
Foreigners.
They were Germans.
 
Both men were wearing identical uniforms.
At Bank Hole, beside the groyne,
they stripped, or did not strip
but the sea stripped them, naked.
 
It's a day's dive to the bottom.
Diz with her webbed fingers and webbed feet
Is the only one who ever touched it,
Unless they touched it.
When the whirlpool dragged them down.
 
What of their stigmata?
Snagged, gashed on a spar's nails.
No! Drowned men split and tear.
No! They clawed each other.
 
Moored Man listens
until they are quite finished.
 
All everyone agrees
is both men were found floating,
they were lolling
side by side, moon-faces up.