2020 - first visit

I got to St Osyth for the first time this year, had a lovely afternoon in brilliant sunshine while home was under cloud.

The water temperature is now swimmable, obviously not warm as this is the UK but once past the initial tickle on the parts a lovely swim is available. I had 2 swims the first about 10 minutes, the second about 15, the water by the surface was warmer than deeper down.

It appears that the beach has been hammered by the gales over the winter. A huge amount of shingle has been washed up. Many of the gorse bushes that provided windbreaks near the shore have been half or completely buried, leaving the beach rather barren. Also some of the sand dunes nearer St Osyth seem to have been covered with shingle, so you have to walk further to get to dunes. This was quite a surprise and it is noticeable as soon as you step off the steps over the wall - you used to come onto a sloping piece of breakwater, but now you are straight onto shingle.

The good news is the beach seems a lot cleaner now, I guess a lot of the rubbish has been swept away or buried.

The beach is still well worth visiting, it is not crowded so social distancing is no problem, and this beach seems to get a bit of a micro climate, it is often sunny when it is cloudy inland.

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