SS Belem

The wind had dropped overnight. The surf had subsided, a little. The bright early autumn sunshine lured large numbers onto the shoreline. Low tide created expanses of sand allowing everyone space to roam.

Two RNLI 4x4’s serviced the lifeguard teams watching the surfers, ensuring that everyone surfed between the flags. The rips here can be sudden and terrifying. Today is the last day of daily lifeguarding. Tomorrow there will still be surfers but no one to watch out for them.

We also saw horses being ridden through the surf, “Poldark style”, joggers, coastal path long distance walkers and almost as many dogs as humans!

My blip shows the remains of a Portuguese cargo ship carrying coal from England to Italy. The SS Belem had been requisitioned in 1916 in Lisbon. In a November storm off Bude the Belem broke its back and was wrecked in 1917. All 33 crew were rescued. Only recently the sands have shifted and parts of The Belem are visible again at low tide.

Today we walked for miles and were really ready for our evening meal in an Italian restaurant!

(Italy was a member of The Allied Forces in WWI. I await the results of today’s Italian General Election with great interest.)