Tramping Diaries SWCP Praa Sands and Prussia Cove August 17th

I’m looking over the golden crescent that is Praa Sands. The backdrop of sky and sea is grey. The air feels cool for the time of year. People seem to have tried to stay loyal to their Summer wardrobe – shorts, blouses, flip flops – while at the same time having to add to it: fleeces, jeans, hoodies. It’s coming up to 11 and the beach has come to life in the last half hour. Colourful Windbreaks are being knocked into the sand, SUP boards are being inflated. There are ball games, buckets and spades and dogs barking.

Although we don’t want to admit it it does look and feel like October. Not at all like last Summer where the sun just seemed to shine everyday. Even back in the tumultuous early days of the first lockdown it was warm. It started in March and just seemed to keep going unabated into September. Not so this year.

I’m outside the Sandbar restaurant next to the beach. I just had breakfast next to a famous comedian and TV celebrity who was having breakfast with his girlfriend. A family are busy chatting and getting ready to hit the beach. The son turns to the father:

‘Did the beach look the same then?’

‘I don’t know. I was very young.’

The mother chats enthusiastically to a friend about what it’s like to have Long Covid.

It’s one of those regular occasions where I dip into the crowds. I enjoy the sense of people around me and listening to their holiday chatter. I like the way people chat so normally to young children and to their dogs too. Then I am ready to leave them all behind and be alone once more.

The beach is soon behind me and below me. The land is like a giant scythe with the beach the blade resting on a field of blue.

Often when I look back along the coast path, I try to remember where came before this. I think back to the cliffs on the west of the Lizard, Church Cove and Poldhu, Mullion and Lizard Point. I try and remember where I was before that and I struggle. I remember in Dorset for a long time I could look back and be reminded of the places I’d been: Golden Cap, Burton Bradstock and West Bay. Then round Portland Bill and up Chesil Beach. My memories often seem to be muddled or wiped out altogether.

I continue around Hoe Point to the small beach of Kenneggy Sands and onto the little inlets of Prussia Cove. I read an article recently in Discover Wildlife Magazine titled ‘Most Spectacular Snorkelling Sites in the UK.’

‘Prussia Cove is a beautiful,tranquil bay with a glorious backdrop and knockout snorkelling….swim straight out to sea until you hit sand. In front of you is a submerged, ridged island. On the Far East side, cork wing wrasse build nests in spring.’

If only I’d made a note before I got here! Still I join the kids jumping off the rocks into the blue. The water is clear and cold.

Once around Cudden Point (where I see an elderly couple swim several hundred metres out to sea) the path follows a big sweep around Mount’s Bay. West across the bay from here is Mousehole and north of that Newlyn and Penzance. I should get there tomorrow.