click photo to enlarge
According to the Ordnance Survey the farthest point from the sea in Great Britain is near the farm of Church Flatts outside the village of Coton in the Elms in Derbyshire. From that location to the nearest sea - at Fosdyke Wash, south of Boston in Lincolnshire - is 70 miles (113 km). That information tells you that for the people of our island a trip to the coast is a relatively easy proposition. Nonetheless, people being people, quite a few go there rarely, if at all.I grew up in the Yorkshire Dales, an area of valleys, hills and mountains. The nearest sea to me at that time was about 30 miles distant, and I loved to go there. I liked the sea so much that later in life I spent fifteen years living by a tidal estuary with the North Sea only 16 miles away and twenty years living a mile from another tidal estuary a mere two miles from the Irish Sea. During those decades I spent a lot of time by the sea, enjoying the light, the open space, the air, the sights of the coast and offshore, and revelled in its ever changing quality. Today a trip to the nearest sea is about 11 miles. However, that location is the saltmarsh edge of The Wash, and whilst this is fine for bird watching and has potential for photography, it isn't the kind of coast I've known and came to enjoy. I once again have to travel about 30 miles for that experience. Consequently, when I recently went to Sewerby in East Yorkshire I took the opportunity to spend an hour or two in nearby Bridlington with its working harbour.
Boats attract photographers like ripe fruit attracts flies, and I wasn't the only person that day pointing their camera at the many and varied boats tied up there. The foreground of today's shot shows a few small, probably pleasure or hobby boats tied up on the landward side of the harbour. The centre now has pontoon jetties for yachts and launches, but the seaward side of the harbour, in the lee of the curving harbour wall, the inshore fishing vessels and landing facilities can still be found, looking much as I first saw them forty or so years ago.
photograph and text (c) T. Boughen
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On
