James Bond versus The Wash Monster?

click photo to enlarge

I have a few rules of thumb for choosing the films that I watch. One of them is is that if the film's trailer includes a shot of a couple running from a building, usually a wooden structure, that suddenly explodes in a ball of orange flame and shattered timbers, throwing them forwards to the ground - but leaving them unscathed - then I know it's not for me. Consequently you won't be surprised to hear that I'm not a fan of the James Bond franchise. However, the regularity and ubiquity of the 007 offerings is such that I have, at various points in my life, seen clips, longer sections and occasionally a whole film starring the all-action hero. Therefore, when I saw this motorized parachute (also called a paramotor) buzzing The Wash Monster off the beach at Hunstanton, Norfolk, I wondered if the the suave spy was on a mission for her majesty. I knew it couldn't be 007 when a second paramotor swooped down and did the same thing: a man of Bond's calibre doesn't need a partner to accomplish his missions of derring do!

Until I visited Hunstanton last week I wasn't aware of The Wash Monster, a 60-seat, ex-U.S. military amphibious vehicle that gives calm-weather rides on The Wash. But, the deep thump of its motor, the gaze of onlookers and a huddle of people on the promenade next to its booking office, soon brought it to my attention. I've seen ex-military DUKWs on the River Thames in London, and I've heard of their use elsewhere in the UK, but this is the only one I've seen operating on the sea, and it's certainly the biggest I've come across.

I took a few more shots of the vehicle after it had lumbered up on to the sand, one of which I include. There's also another shot of the skilful, if a touch imprudent, paramotorist.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 228mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Potatoes and salt

click photo to enlarge

The coastline of The Wash on England's east coast has moved over the centuries. And, as the sea level rose and fell, so the salt-makers who worked the salt-marshes around this great bay moved to ply their trade.

The earliest remains suggest that Iron Age man gathered sea salt from this region, and that subsequent Roman invaders carried on the extraction of this valuable commodity. Remains in the areas around Ingoldmells, Helpringham and Billingborough show that clay troughs and fire were used to extract the salt. The later Saxon and medieval "salterns" followed the retreating sea, and are closer to the present-day coast. Bicker Haven was lined with these sites. Here the salt was extracted from the mud of the salt-marsh since it had a higher saline content than the sea water. This involved moving and washing great quantities of mud which were then piled up in "spoil heaps" before the resulting brine was boiled. By the 1600s this activity and the exports it generated had stopped, superseded by sun-evaporated salt. As the sea retreated further, the salt-marshes of Bicker Haven and the surrounding Fens were drained and turned into productive farmland. However, the mounds left by the salt-makers remain today, shallow bumps in this dead flat landscape, clearly visible by their contour lines on today's 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey map.

Today's photograph isn't part of a Japanese karesansui garden, but shows a field of newly-planted potatoes near Bicker, the mounds of each row undulating over the ancient man-made hills of the medieval salt-industry. I was attracted by the intersecting patterns that the mechanical planter had made.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On