'Warning! Warning!'

As I write this, there are two gas engineers busy digging a hole in the road outside the Tavern. One of them has just lit a cigarette so, if this post is never completed, you will know why...

Remember Sully Island?

The 400m rocky causeway which connects this tiny outcrop to the coast of south Wales is completely covered by fast-flowing water twice a day. Back in 2014, the RNLI installed warning lights in a bid to reduce the number of visitors cut off by the rising tide.

    (BBC news)

At the time, there was a suggestion that additional measures would be needed - audible warnings, perhaps, or text messages; this does not appear to have happened, although a new warning sign was put up earlier this year to supplement the pleasingly dramatic admonition below.

So, three years on, is the system working?

Thirty people have been rescued near Sully Island so far this year.

Well I'd say that's a resounding 'no' - either that or there are even more potential Darwin Award winners out there than I thought. The RNLI and coastguard clearly have their work cut out - and they're not the only ones:

Gordon Hadfield, who owns the beach at Swanbridge and a cafe, said he and his staff had saved six people from the water in the past four years. Three weeks ago he led a family of eight to safety.

So how do people manage to get themselves marooned or washed off the causeway with such depressing regularity? According to the coastguard service

"The sad fact is, a lot of people come down here and do not know the tide is going to come around them. They don't know it's an island, so there's a lot of education around that."

Now, here I have to hold my hands up and say I have never been there but a quick look at Google clearly shows that, at low tide, the island's crown of vegetation is surrounded on all sides by sea-washed sand and rock; you don't have to be a geographical genius to work out the implications - unless, of course, you have no understanding of the concept of tides.

Sadly for humanity (or fortunately for the gene pool, depending on your outlook), such ignorance appears to be far from uncommon, as a trawl through the pages of this blog will show. In addition - and possibly a significant factor at Sully Island - there are the latter-day Cnuts, who somehow believe themselves (and their hapless families) exempt from the laws of nature and regard a tide-lapped causeway as a challenge.

As we have seen on previous excursions to the Somerset coast, the Bristol Channel claims to have the second strongest tides in the world (though some Canadians and Australians might beg to differ). Add in a 40-minute round trip on a slippery rock causeway and a plentiful supply of tourists - either ignorant or foolhardy - and you have a recipe for disaster.

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Update: from the RNLI website: and still it goes on...

'We were called just after 8:15pm this evening, Sunday 27th August 2017 to attend reports of people in the water off Sully Island. 

When we arrived on scene the people who had been in the water had made it ashore but a further 4 people (3 adults, one child) required lifeboat assistance to return to the mainland.'

A reluctance to be tolled

This is a story that will strike a chord - or ring a bell - with anyone who has had a reasonable proposal shot down in flames at a meeting.

One Biff Vernon set out recently to pitch an 'unusual piece of public art' to East Lindsey District Council Planning Committee in Lincolnshire:

The £30,000-plus project would have accommodated within an oak frame a brass bell that would have chimed (at various pitches) according to the movements and heights of the tide.

The so-called tide-and-time bell [sic] would have been the sixth in a series of 12 proposed for British coastal locations, with five already having been installed.

The five existing bells are in Appledore, the Isle of Lewis, London, Aberdyfi and Anglesey, with others planned for Orford Ness and Aberdeen. Mr Vernon explained that the proposed bell, designed by Devon artist Marcus Vergette, would provide a 'talking point' and potentially attract tourists to the beach at Anderby Creek, a windswept coastal hamlet north of Skegness.

Personally, I'm not sure I would make a special trip from outside the area, but there's no denying that the bells are an elegant and intriguing concept, a corrosion-resistant doubly-flaring hollow tube, cast using traditional bell-making techniques, containing a clapper activated by waves as the tide rises.

The Council Planning Committee, it seems, were not so impressed.

...councillors refused the application, noting ‘noise pollution’ objections from villagers and further claiming the installation would be a threat to swimmers and marine craft users.

Since the bells are designed to be covered at high tide, that second point does make some sense, although it is certainly not an insurmountable problem and has clearly been successfully tackled at the other sites. The Councillors, however, had not yet finished with Mr Vernon:

Coun Jim Swanson described the idea as ‘a folly’...

Ouch!

...and committee chairman Coun Neil Cooper said oak was inappropriate because it ‘rots like hell’ after contact with water - which was why elm, when available, was used in harbour construction. 

Not surprisingly, after this all-too-public mauling, the local newspaper describes Mr Vernon as 'crestfallen'. In his own account, he speculates that he might have been 'caught up in some internal feud' - a highly plausible explanation to anyone who has observed the collateral damage inflicted by turf wars in such public bodies as NHS trusts and Housing Benefit offices.

I'm not so sure, though. You see, back when the project was in its infancy, it seems to have been intended primarily as a celebration of British tradition, maritime heritage and craftsmanship. The matter of climate change was mentioned by the bell's creator almost as an afterthought:

"Being an island, we have a close relationship with the sea and this is a positive way of looking at our relationship with the sea and the environment." 

The bell is a piece of art, but there could be a practical element as well: "If the bell starts ringing more and more, it's a sign of rising tide levels and global warming. In which case it would be a warning bell."

Over the intervening years, however, the climate change aspect appears to have been seized on and promoted by other agencies until it has become a defining element:

The Time and Tide Bell Project was a finalist for the Climate Change Awards 2011, Best Artistic Response to climate Change.

"Devon artist Marcus Vergette is ringing out a poignant warning on climate change with a permanent installation of 12 giant bells at high tide points around the UK. Rung by the waves, Vergette's seven foot-high bronze bells will strike more often as climate change raises sea levels, and their pitch changes as they become submerged."

Add in the fact that Mr Vernon is known to be a Green Party member and environmental blogger and you have a combination likely to trigger a reflex reaction in the sort of people who don't like to feel they are on the receiving end of a sermon or being used to further someone else's political agenda.

If so, it's a great shame, since, regardless of environmental considerations, the Time and Tide Bell has much to recommend it. With a few tweaks to the design - it's not clear why the oak frame was chosen in preference to the metal or wire supports of the other bells - it could have become a noteworthy feature of Lincolnshire's coastline.

And, as Tavern regulars have doubtless already surmised, bells like these could have a valuable role to play in alerting the unwary to the action of the tide. A modified version could even be installed at locations notorious for walkers cut off by rising water - a trip through the Tavern archives could furnish a handy list - in preference to the threatened electronic warning lights and sounds.

While such an expensive project should not be charged directly to the long-suffering taxpayer - sufficient that its genesis was Arts Council funded - perhaps it would be possible, along with external grants, to encourage subscription among local residents and businesses, particularly if the bells were sited in areas where they would draw visitors and add to an area's amenities.

My own nomination for a potential site (and one where the Council might well be persuaded to chip in)? Definitely Dunwich (the real one in Suffolk, UK; sorry, H P Lovecraft fans), where the sea has engulfed the former medieval city. I haven't recorded any errant littoral pedestrians there, true, but, given local tradition, the place is surely crying out for it:

As the legend goes, if at certain tides you stand upon a bleak stretch of Dunwich beach, its possible to hear the ghostly peals of church bells tolling from beneath the waves. 

'...it fell: and great was the fall of it.'

With the advent of warmer weather, we are bracing ourselves for the seasonal surge in the number of citizens of our island nation who set off for a spot of littoral recreation blissfully unaware that the sea will not necessarily stay put for the duration of their visit.

We are, of course, familiar with tales of Foolish Virgins plucked to safety after ambling along the water's edge or driving onto the sand with no thought for the rising tide but occasionally the inundations are on a grander scale, where freely available tide tables have somehow been overlooked.

This week furnished a particularly entertaining and cheerfully harmless example:

A long-awaited sandcastle competition on Cleethorpes beach had to be abandoned after the tide came in, and washed away the exhibits.

 It seems, according to the organisers, that there had been 'some misunderstanding about how early the tide would come in'. So who was in charge?

Organised by the British Architects (RBA) Love Architecture programme, the event was staged in front and to the side of the Pier.

This may not come as a surprise to anyone who has had to endure the inconvenience and impracticality of living or working in an 'award-winning' building - the sort where the architect has won prizes (or lucrative public sector contracts) for an assortment of radical features in drawings and scale models without the faintest idea of how to make those high-flown 'concepts' work in the real world.

Five teams of architects and nine teams from the general public were involved, making this a reasonably large-scale enterprise and one the organisers presumably hoped would be an excellent public relations exercise for their profession.

The competition was to finish around 3pm but with an hour to go all hope was lost as the tide came in which surrounded and then swamped the creations.

Stop! It's too much!

There were only four castles still standing on dry land by the end.

While less euphonious that the usual piss-up/brewery analogy, you have to admit that the inability to organise a sandcastle competition on a beach must confer some sort of distinction.

Of mud and stars

Oh dear; decisions, decisions!

Returning from a few days of bracing (if somewhat muddy) walks in one of the more picturesque parts of the country, I am faced with not one but two irresistible topics.

Firstly there is 2014 UF56, a bus-sized asteroid passing by a mere 158,000 km above our heads just after 9pm tonight - have your glasses filled and ready!

And secondly, to brighten up a dark October evening, there is the boy racer who spent yesterday watching his pride and joy sink slowly into the mud near Burnham on Sea.

We have, of course, reported from the area before;  despite warning signs and publicity, a combination of Britain's biggest tidal range and vehicle access to the beach is clearly too much temptation for some.

Just a few months after a father-and-daughter team discovered the hard way that coastal mud makes a less than ideal driving surface, a 22-year-old from Bristol decided that his Saturday night would not be complete until he had taken his souped-up Celica for a spin on the beach.

Finding himself inextricably embedded in mud over the axles with an incoming tide, he abandoned the vehicle (and his chances of a Darwin Award - this time, at least) and escaped to shore. Recovering the car, however, has proved considerably more problematical, as the pictures show.

And there's more to enjoy in the comments:

It's got a GT-Four boot spoiler on it but DVLA states that it's a 1762cc car, which means it's not actually a GT-Four (they were 2 litre).

So, a Saturday night boy racer and a poser; our cup of Schadenfreude runneth over!

Speaking of which, it's about time for our annual musical comment on Sober October; after a sparse few months, we are entering a reasonable crowded part of the orbit - last Friday produced the undeniable convenient 2014 SC324 - and can look forward to plenty more close approaches in the near future.

The man who drinks cold water pure
And goes to bed quite sober
Falls as the early leaves do fall
So early in October,
But he who drinks just what he likes
Until he's half seas over
Shall live until, until he dies
And then lie down in clover.

Bells and Whistles

I think it is fair to say that Sully Island, off the south coast of Wales, is never going to be a hot tourist destination for the masses.

For those who like their landscapes unspoiled, however, this former smugglers' refuge boasts an Iron Age fort and a Victorian shipwreck as well as panoramic views out over the Bristol Channel.

There is, however, one small problem: the island stands at the end of a 400m rocky causeway, cut off by the tide for all but a few hours a day, a situation which, regular readers will not be surprised to learn, appears to be beyond the comprehension of some visitors.

Over Bank Holiday weekends in particular, the local Penarth lifeboat crew must barely get a chance to sit down to a nice cup of tea and a slice of bara brith.

“We are repeatedly called out to rescue people cut off on Sully Island, despite constant warnings about the dangers of the incoming tide"

In  bid to cut down the number of incidents - and enable the crews to get on with the rest of their lives - the RNLI installed a pilot scheme in mid-June using tide powered traffic lights:

The traffic lights will use a tide gauge and indicate when it is safe for people to cross, when time is running out and when it is unsafe to walk along the causeway.

The yellow phase provides a countdown on how much time is left on the causeway as a return trip takes about 40 minutes on foot.

So, over two months on, was the scheme a success?

AN RNLI text service warning visitors about safe crossing times could be introduced to the Sully Island causeway in a bid to stop visitors getting stranded on the island.

Er... that'd be a 'no', then.

A sound warning system, and another traffic lights warning system based on the island, are also being considered by the RNLI in an effort to cut the number of call-outs to the volunteer lifeboat crew.

In fact, the number of call-outs this summer appears to have been basically unchanged, with stranded walkers claiming not to have seen the lights - the suggestion that they might, of their own initiative, have ascertained the tide times beforehand doesn't appear to enter into it - although evidence elsewhere points to a minority who feel such warnings somehow do not apply to them.

So the RNLI are planning another set of lights on the island - somewhat to the detriment, one feels, of this scenic Site of Special Scientific Interest - and a sound warning, as well as sending tide times to anyone who texts them to ask.

And when that doesn't work, and Mr and Mrs Cnut and their little dog still end up marooned, what then?

One reassuringly certain thing about the tide is that it goes down again. By my calculations, it's never going to be more than about seven or eight hours until the causeway is passable again, and, if they were fit enough to undertake the 20-minute walk across the rocks, a night in the open isn't going to kill them.

The problem is that their stupidity just might:

“People are unaware off just how quickly the tide comes in and when they realise they are being cut off, they tend to panic and try to make it over the causeway to the mainland."

Which, given the depth of the channel and the fierce local currents, is a seriously bad idea. It's the perpetual problem faced by the RNLI; manpower and resources diverted from real emergencies into rescuing people from the consequences of their own foolhardiness or ignorance.

And it's horribly symptomatic of a society in which we are all subjected to ever more interference because some people cannot or will not accept responsibility for themselves.

'I must go down to the sea again, for the call of the running tide..

...is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied.'

Well, we expected this week's unusually high tides to bring some interesting examples of Man (and Woman) failing to grasp the fact that the sea goes up and down and we certainly weren't disappointed.

Coastguard and RNLI reports show a predictable host of unwary day-trippers managing to get cut off in a variety of scenic shoreline locations but special mention must go to the woman stranded at the old breakwater in Lyme Regis with her six children, potentially making somewhat belated amends for having contributed so generously to the gene pool.

Also worth noting are the two cars which had to be extracted from the sea at Redcar yesterday. In one case, rather than wading to shore through a few inches of water, the occupants scrambled up to the roof of the vehicle and sat there in state like two latter-day King Cnuts.

Similar automotive woes awaited an unfortunate fisherman whose boat broke down off Dunbar. Finally rescued by the RNLI, he returned to the harbour to find his car under five feet of water (in the great tradition of local headlines, The East Lothian News gives us 'It's park and tide').

Forget the dour east-coast stereotypes, Dunbar's finest are clearly compassionate souls...

Gary Fairbairn, coxswain of Dunbar RNLI, said: “We didn’t have the heart to tell him about his car until we got back to land." 

...well, either that or they are veritable connoisseurs of Schadenfreude and wanted to savour the look on his face when he saw his submerged vehicle:

"To say he wasn’t happy is an understatement.”

 There was less sympathy, however, in the comments:

'A full moon, highest tides, and he leaves it on the slipway to get in the way of other users? Sell yer boat son and stick to dry land.'

Meanwhile, we've become familiar with youngsters outsourcing their thinking to phones which, in some cases, appear to be smarter than their owners. There is certainly a growing tendency to rely on the things at the expense of common sense, as three holidaymakers from Essex found out when they set up a barbecue on a remote part of a Devon beach.

They had no idea of tide times, so it must have come as something of a shock to find themselves marooned on a fast-diminishing patch of sand at the foot of a sheer cliff. It was at that point that they realized - oh, the horror! - that they had no mobile signal to call for help.

Natural selection was thwarted by some distant observers calling out the rescue teams who airlifted them to safety, but even these Darwin Award hopefuls are presumably more of an asset to the gene pool than a group of teenagers from Norfolk.

With a high spring tide and a surge predicted, Hunstanton's Environment agency teams spent Tuesday night checking their flood defences. Patrolling the beach in the early hours of the morning, they found a cheerfully coloured tent pitched well below the expected high-water mark and containing five happily snoring teenage boys.

As anyone who has ever given houseroom to the species will know, teenage boys can sleep through alarm clocks, ringing phones or determined hoovering - almost anything, in fact, except the smell of frying bacon - so it's highly likely that without intervention, the youngsters would have been swamped inside their sleeping bags.

I hope their parents - and future progeny - are duly grateful.

Talking Torquay

With this weekend's 'supermoon' expected to bring higher than normal spring tides, we will doubtless be spoilt for choice by next week's haul of rescue-related news stories.

In Devon, however, they are planning to put the rising waters to excellent use. According to the grandly-named Torquay Herald Express (which is clearly no stranger to the obligatory headline pun),

Entries are flooding in for a new competition to Beat the Tide in Paignton.

Today's contest, in aid of muscular dystrophy charity Action Duchenne, is the first of what organisers hope will become an annual event in which teams of six to eight people are given an hour to build a mound of sand on the beach.

When the tide comes in, all the team members must climb onto their giant sandcastle and stay there as the water rises around them.

The winners will be the last team left standing; all the fun of being cut off by the tide without having to bother the emergency services and a valuable lesson on fluid dynamics into the bargain, all while helping a worthwhile cause.

Forget 'Strictly X-factor Find Me a Talented Nancy Boy on Ice'; this is the competition that should be broadcast to the nation tonight - and every subsequent year until the RNLI stop having to fish out would-be Cnuts at every spring tide.

...........................

As a bonus, the same edition of the local newspaper provides the delightfully paradoxical headline:

Is the 89p pound shop in Torquay the cheapest in the country?

It appears that two rival discount outlets have been systematically undercutting each other over the past few weeks in a sort of economic limbo dance of 'tactical marketing'. Last week, 'The 99p Store' in Torquay was selling everything for 92p, while 'Poundland' was pricing its merchandise at a mere 90p.

'The 99p Store' has now retaliated by dropping its prices to 89p. This price-cutting is, presumably, subsidised by some kind of central fighting fund designed to put rivals out of business. If it carries on until one of them blinks, it will become a test of which business can afford to sell below cost for longest.

The same thing has happened in other towns, albeit with less media attention - the Daily Mail picked this up while I had a post in draft (which is always annoying!) - but this seems to be the longest and toughest price battle so far and must be putting other retailers under strain.

If this is the future, we can surely look forward to high streets filled with the ubiquitous phone shops and nail bars and a multiplicity of discount outlets selling whatever they have managed to acquire on the grey market that week.

Oh brave new world, that has such retail in it!


(There is, of course, only one soundtrack for a story like the latter one; happy earworm, everybody!)

That sinking feeling (again)

Another day, another car. The search and rescue team at Brean Beach must be getting sick of having to dig out the stranded motors of people who think the laws of physics don't apply to them.

The driver of the latest unintentionally amphibious vehicle had taken it half a mile down the beach heedless of warnings to the public not to approach the water's edge at low tide because of soft sand and mud.

"I'd just been driving along the beach with my daughter enjoying the sunshine and didn't think I could get stuck."

This is, presumably, the same mindset that causes school run parents in 4x4s to pull out across two lanes of traffic without looking; the hubristic sense that your vehicle makes you somehow indestructible.

Fortunately for the driver and his daughter, they didn't get the opportunity to qualify for a multiple Darwin Award by discovering that quicksand is more than just a handy plot device in adventure films.

Connoisseurs of Schadenfreude can find photos and some highly satisfying video footage at the Burnham news site.

All at sea

It is, alas, no surprise that the warm weather has, once more, brought the nautical Darwin Award hopefuls out in force . Exmouth RNLI, for example, were roused from their beauty sleep at 5am on Sunday when shouts for help were heard from the river:

A coastguard spokesman said: “The guy had been to the pub in the evening and decided to go kayaking in the middle of the night. 

“The tide was coming in and he was taken up the river which wasn't the direction he wanted to go. He capsized and the inshore lifeboat found him holding onto a moored boat at Pole Sands.”

A few hours later, the Exmouth crews were out again, this time delivering a stern lecture to one of those parents who, having already contributed to the gene pool, appear to be attempting to remedy the fact with the help of an inflatable toy,  an outgoing tide and an offshore wind.

And RNLI crews on the Tamar have quite enough on their hands without having to deal with the likes of the Plymouth man reported missing by his wife when he failed to return from a fishing trip by 10.30pm on Saturday night; emergency services finally traced his mobile phone to the restaurant where he was having dinner, though the news story sadly fails to say with whom.

Elsewhere, Man's (or, in this case, Woman's) battle against the tide has claimed yet another automotive victim; since it's clear that individual responsibility is never going to be enough, perhaps the authorities at Brean Beach car park should look into some way to alert motorists to the rising waters.

A few pence on the cost of parking could, with a bit of imagination, furnish a brightly-coloured paper wristband stamped with that day's 'leave-by' time, though personally I rather like the idea of firing a cannon from the nearby fort as the water approaches.

After all, if people need to be protected from the consequences of their own lack of forethought, the rest of us ought to be able to get some fun out of it where we can.

"The tide rises, the tide falls, The twilight darkens, the curlew calls..."

I know, I know.... it's been a bit quiet around here recently. Still, however severe the demands of real life and the blogging fatigue, sometimes a news story comes along that is simply too good to let go.

Here at the Tavern, we try to do our bit in chronicling Man's battle against the elements and, in particular, his lack of even the most basic grasp of tidal dynamics so we were naturally most diverted to learn that:

Jedward, the Irish pop group, has been rescued by the Irish Coast Guard after they became trapped by the incoming tide in north Dublin.

For those who managed to escape it thus far, Jedward is a pair of twins - John and Edward (are your toes curling yet?) - gifted with truly astonishing hair and dress sense. It plays the guitar and, arguably, sings and burst onto the music scene some years ago in series 157 of 'Britain's got X-rated Opportunity Knockers' before becoming Ireland's secret weapon to avoid having to host the Eurovision Song Contest again.

A quick trip to Youtube may help to account for the delicious sense of Schadenfreude elicited by this tale of Jedward and its cousin stranded amid the rising waves:

"The boys were getting more and more desperate as the water was coming in. Thank God the Coast Guard sent the helicopter up and it found them trapped on sands near Malahide."

So was Jedward airlifted to safety, plucked from the rising waters in the nick of time? Reader, it was not:

The helicopter crew spotted the stranded Grimes family members and used a floodlight to point out their location to rescuers on the ground.

Skerries coast guard members reached the group on foot shortly after midnight and reunited all three with the rest of their family.

This escapade was, it appears, the result of a late evening stroll along the beach in blissful ignorance not only of the incoming tide but also of the fact that night follows day.

The Irish Coast Guard received a report that the three had become "disoriented in the area due to the falling darkness and unusually fast incoming tide".

Such a startling lack of self-preservation instinct should surely qualify for some kind of award. Still, it all ended happily and, being well-brought up, Jedward had the good grace to thank its rescuers publicly and exhort other Darwin Award hopefuls not to follow in its soggy footsteps.

Sadly for the rescue services, past experience suggests that the appeal is likely to be in vain.


My thanks to those of you who have turned up and rattled the Tavern door during my absence - the bar should be opening for business on a more regular basis for a while so please drop in and join me for a virtual pint.

Beautiful Eurydice shows how it's done

With the Tavern's interest in matters maritime, it may not surprise you to know that we once owned a tide clock.

Things have come a long way since the intricate machines constructed for the purpose in the 19th century, which represent an impressive degree of initiative and ingenuity as well as having a certain steampunk charm.

Ours resembled a normal clock, except that the numbers had been replaced by a jaunty selection of flags (which may, for all I know, may spell out an exceedingly rude message in naval code; I never checked) marking off the tide levels in its 12.4 hour circuit.

Setting this useful gadget turned out to be a complicated and arcane ritual which had to be performed at high tide when the moon was full, as close to midnight as possible. Even then the clock lost 15 minutes a month and had to be reset at regular intervals, necessitating much checking of tide tables to find a suitable opportunity.

The speckled sea-louse, however, is spared all this fuss, since it has its own internal tide clock. According to recent research, Eurydice pulchra, even when removed from tidal waters and deprived of the circadian mechanism that reacts to light, continues to swim in time to anticipated tide changes.

The creature's name presumably derives from the way it burrows deep into the sand at low tide and emerges when the tide comes in, all, it appears, guided by a built-in ability to predict the ebb and flow.

I can't help feeling that, given the vast number of tide-related call-outs the RNLI have reported this summer, it would be a very good thing if scientists found some way of implanting this awareness in human beings.

Meanwhile, you can never have enough Gluck.

Toast of the week - animal rescue edition

It's not just humans who get cut off by the tide, you know...

Two young ferrets who were at risk of drowning were rescued by lifeboat volunteers at Newbiggin RNLI lifeboat station.

What makes this story particularly appealing - apart from its furry protagonists - is the tone of the RNLI account of the incident, written by the local volunteer Press Officer, who has eschewed the usual utilitarian style of reporting in favour of a more literary approach:

The ferrets' anxious owners had made desperate attempts to save their animals by wading into the sea on the Cambois Bay rocks but their best endeavours looked likely to be scuppered when neither Tootsie or Lucky responded.

The crew found Tootsie and Lucky minutes away from drowning by the rapidly rising tide.

Fortunately the intrepid rescuers were able to calm the animals (and, by the sound of it, their distraught owners) and lift them to safety from the rocks.

The icing on the cake is the accompanying photograph, taken by the author; showing two seemingly identical ferrets, it is carefully labelled 'Tootsie (left) and Lucky' - a level of attention to detail that some of our national newspapers would do well to emulate.

It may come as no surprise that the Press Officer, who has written a book about the lifeboat station, is also listed as their mechanic; it's surely good news for the crews and those who may need rescuing that the lifeboats are in such meticulous hands.

When every day seems to bring us another news report of man's inhumanity (or indifference) to man, it is reassuring to think there are still volunteers out there prepared to risk life and limb if necessary to save lives - and to rescue the occasional pet.

It's a while since we had a toast in the Tavern, so I invite you to raise a glass tonight to the men and women of the RNLI and to their Press Officer in Newbiggin by the sea.

That sinking feeling

Just when I thought it was going to be a slow news day (except, of course, that a young woman has had a baby and the media seem to have gone collectively insane*), two entertaining stories come along at once.

First there was last night's asteroid, and then this:

Beachgoer's car is ruined after being swamped by turning tide

And, as if that were not enough, it was followed by this:

Three further vehicles rescued from incoming tide in Burnham area

Once again, the sea has demonstrated its dominance over mankind. In fact, it makes you wonder whether we ever intended to leave the oceans in the first place; perhaps, four hundred-odd million years ago, our distant aquatic ancestors were happily foraging in unfamiliar tidal shallows when the water went away.

You can almost picture them, left high and dry, gaping at each other in baffled confusion. Much the same expressions can be seen on today's beaches among families who, having set up a vast and intricate encampment a few feet from the water's edge and gone for a paddle, return to find the waves lapping merrily round the cool-box and their belongings drifting out to sea.

It would be interesting to know whether such incidents are becoming more frequent; presumably the wider availability of cars and better roads have led to more day-trippers from inland whose lack of familiarity with the sea could explain an increase in the number of tide-related emergency call-outs.

And that's not the end of the seaside idiocies either:

Solent Coastguard said it had received about 40 emergency calls in one 10-minute period over reports of adrift inflatables along the Hampshire coast.

A man, who had been aimlessly adrift in the Solent on a child's inflatable dinghy for well over an hour, has been rescued by emergency crews.

To quote a previous post; 'you may have been told at school that there's no such thing as failure, but when you're blundering about in the shipping lanes with a freighter bearing down on you at speed, I think you may find there is'.

And let's not forget this Darwin Award hopeful:

A man who attempted to sail to Ireland from Dorset in an inflatable dinghy has been rescued by coastguards. 

The man, believed to be American and in his 40s, was picked up south of Durdle Door having drifted eastwards from Osmington Mills on Wednesday afternoon. The 6ft (1.8m) inflatable boat had paddles as a mast and rudder and a plastic sheet for a sail. 

The Irish coast is more than 300 miles (480km) from Dorset.

Admittedly, as an American, he may well have grown up further from the sea than it's possible to get in our island nation, but that's not much of an excuse.

And frankly, we don't need his sort here; we've got quite enough home-grown maritime incompetents as it is!


*Not to mention Marks and Spencer; within minutes of the announcement, they were sending out e-mails with links to buy baby clothes and gifts, champagne, flowers and a 'delightfully illustrated commemorative tin' of biscuits.

Sea-level of ignorance

Here at the Tavern, we have a great deal of respect for the men and women of the RNLI, ready to drop everything at a moment's notice and risk their lives on behalf of those in peril on the sea.

Some shouts, however, are less critical than others...

Staff from a Sea Life aquarium had to be rescued from the sea after they were stranded by an incoming tide.

Oh dear! Though you have to admit that it is rather funny...

The group of four from Southend Sea Life Adventure Aquarium were out near the town's pier head taking samples when they were cut off on Thursday.

....actually, it's very funny....

They ended up knee-deep in water and were unable to get back to shore.

...Stop! It's too much!

A volunteer Hovercraft crew from the Southend RNLI brought them back to shore and gave them safety advice.

*wipes tears from eyes*

Unbelievable! Though the RNLI do seem to be spending a disproportionate amount of their time rescuing latter-day Cnuts from the incoming waves, you'd have thought these people, at least, might have some inkling that the tide goes in and out.

According to the Sea-Life Centre's website:

'We like to call this Edu-tainment because we can guarantee that not only will you find the themed displays entertaining but we are sure you will go away knowing something new about the life that lives in our planet’s seas and oceans.'

Just don't expect them to know anything about the sea itself.

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Overtaken by the tide;
As out from Southend he did wade.
Past the pier we watched them range,
Their lack of knowledge passing strange
That with the hours the tide would swell:
What's this?
The water's rising - bloody hell!

Martyrs to the causeway

Regular readers will remember that, last month, a total of eight vehicles were stranded on the causeway that links Mersea Island to the rest of Essex after trying to cross at high tide.

But if you thought the resulting publicity would deter any would-be Canutes from recreating the scenario with this month's spring tides, you obviously have rather too much faith in human intelligence:

The Mersea Coastguard team was on a routine patrol when it came across a Ford Fiesta partly submerged on the Strood on Friday.

And there's more...

The previous day a 4x4 and Toyota van were stuck on the causeway that links Colchester to Mersea Island and the police towed both vehicles to safety.

At least it was the police that time; the coastguard (and, on other occasions, the RNLI) have quite enough to do with keeping Darwin award hopefuls out of trouble on the water without having to sort out motorists as well.

It would be interesting to know something about these drivers who fail to grasp the significance of the terms 'tidal causeway' and, for that matter, 'island'. I doubt, somehow, that locals would get caught in this way (though I might be wrong).

A quick trawl through comments on the subject at the Gazette suggests that the Romford Navy may be well represented among the stranded motorists, which, as well as offering an agreeable sense of Schadenfreude, sounds quite plausible; anyone whose idea of fun is driving for 90 minutes up the A12 to blast around on a jest-ski is surely more likely than most to consider himself superior to the laws of nature.

Whoever they are, their persistence in the face of unprecedented tide table availability and local news coverage suggests that, despite the media storm that greeted his opinion last week, Professor Gerald Crabtree may have a point when he says that human intelligence is in decline because a lack of it is no longer fatal:

"the need for intelligence was reduced as we began to live in supportive societies that made up for lapses of judgment or failures of comprehension."

The causeway here at Mersea is not drained...

Of all the people in a position to appreciate the number of Darwin award hopefuls in our midst, it is surely the RNLI who see the most.

Their call-out records describe a cornucopia of thwarted opportunities to depart this world as a result of carelessness, imprudence or downright idiocy, from the woman and her son floating far out to sea in rubber rings or the three men adrift in the English Channel in a child's toy dinghy to the would-be weekend yachtsmen bumbling about in the busiest shipping lane in Europe (for all these and more, see the label RNLI).

And if that were not enough, there are the occasions when they have to step in to rescue stranded motorists and pedestrians cut off by rising sea water; latter-day Cnuts for whom tide-tables are clearly a source of ineffable mystery.

This week's spring tides brought us spectacular news footage of waves overtopping harbour walls and lapping at the doors of coastal homes, but, in rural Essex, some rather more mundane dramas were unfolding:

A lifeboat manager has called for improved warning signs at an Essex causeway after 13 people had to be rescued at high tide within 24 hours.

The West Mersea Lifeboat rescued a woman, child and a baby on The Strood, towards Mersea Island, on Thursday and 10 people were caught out on Wednesday.

Like his Northumbrian counterpart, the local lifeboat operations manager is 'fed up' with calling his volunteers away from work or family to deal with the handful of motorists every year for whom the word 'island' is not sufficient clue that some care should be exercised en route at high tide in the absence of a bridge.

As events at Holy Island have shown, putting up bigger and better warning signs will still not deter the true Darwin Award hopeful who clearly thinks such things do not apply to him. The next half-wit to be fished out leads to a call for lights, and the next one, to barriers - how far do we have to go to protect people from their own stupidity?

You can almost sense the exasperation behind the latest press release:

"Essex Highways would like to remind users not to take unnecessary risks on The Strood and to use a common-sense approach when the water is at high tide."

Good luck with that one!


Update: More in the same vein...

The tide is high (but the IQ's aren't)

...Here we go again!.

This time, we're off to JuliaM's stamping-ground of Southend for a startling tale of man vs nature.

We've mentioned here before that, despite our island nation status, there are still Britons who appear totally baffled by the fact that the sea goes up and down (see 'Roll on, thou grate and restless ocean').

One might, though, expect rather more awareness from those actually involved in seashore construction work...

Workers building flood defences on a beach were left red-faced after returning from a break to find their construction vehicles underwater.

They had parked their digger and nine-tonne dumper on the shore at Chalkwell in Southend, Essex but were caught out by a high spring tide.

As it happens, one of our favourite haunts is a beach further along the same coast, where maintenance work on the sea-wall and breakwaters must be done on a regular basis to prevent beach erosion and flooding.

The contractors we have observed there have it down to a fine art; during the spring tides, they arrive in force as the sea is receding, drive down the beach to work at full stretch throughout low tide and then retreat before the oncoming waves.

And here's the clever bit; those contractors are local chaps and, knowing that the lowest tides - which uncover a maximum area for them to work on - are also the highest ones, they remove their equipment completely from the beach until the next low tide.

So why should this lot have lost the plot so completely? Well, there's a clue at the end of the article (complete with authentic Daily Mail typo):

Council contractors North Cotts Civils were unavailable for comment.

Once you decipher it (with the help of the photos), it turns out that this coastal engineering was being carried out by North Notts Civils, based in - you've guessed it - the distinctly landlocked town of Nottingham.

Carried out under the aegis of Southend Council's Deputy Leader with responsibility for Regeneration and Enterprise (now there's a title to conjure with!), this has all the hallmarks of another triumph of competitive tendering over common sense.

The tide is high...

There's a horrible inevitability about it. Give homo not-so-sapiens a tidal causeway and a clear indication of when it's safe to cross and he will still end up being fished out by the rescue services.

Despite clear warning signs and tide indications, a Cumbrian couple had to be winched to safety by the RAF this week after trying to drive back from Holy Island an hour and a half after the safe crossing time had passed.

And it's only a fortnight since the Seahouses lifeboat was called out to the causeway for the eighth time this year; this time to rescue an Australian couple whose car was rapidly turning into a submarine. Their spokesman is probably getting fairly tired of having to comment:

Ian Clayton, from the Seahouses station said: "It's incredible that people seem to think they can drive their cars into the North Sea."

"A couple of years ago islanders specifically warned a man to leave the island before the tide came in, otherwise he would get stuck. He pooh-poohed it, saying it was just something to frighten tourists, but half an hour later he was hanging onto the roof of his car and his wife was up to her chest in water, clinging on to their two children."

The locals, meanwhile, are more outspoken on the subject:

Susan Massey, parish council chairman and owner of the island's Oasis cafe, said: "Anyone that gets stuck really has got to be an idiot as there are warning signs with tidal times all over the island. Barriers have been suggested in the past, but if a person wants to cross at stupid time then they will."

An average year sees around a dozen of these call-outs, as yet another visitor to the island thinks he - and it is usually a he - knows better than the locals. One can forgive the RNLI for getting a bit fed up; each lifeboat call-out costs the RNLI 'between £1,800 and £2,000', which equates to an awful lot of tin-rattling on a saturday morning.

So what prompts these latter-day Cnuts* to defy the tide? Perhaps it's a failure to grasp fully the implications of the word 'Island', or an inability to read or understand official notices, but I'm inclined to think that it has much to do with the nature of our society.

After all, as a trip along any British motorway will amply demonstrate, if you bombard a population with endless instructions and warning signs, sooner or later they will stop trying to distinguish between the necessary and the unnecessary and simply ignore them all.


*'Canute' was a rather twee attempt to anglicise the pronunciation of the original (and prevent ill-bred sniggers from the back of generations of classrooms); and of course, being rather more intelligent that these characters, he wasn't actually ordering the tide to retreat but making a point about the limitations of power.

'Roll on, thou grate and restless ocean...'

'There, twice in every twenty-four hours, the ocean's vast tide sweeps in a flood over a large stretch of land and hides Nature's everlasting controversy about whether this region belongs to the land or to the sea.' [Pliny the Elder, Natural history]

For the Mediterranean-bred Romans, the rising and falling tide further afield was certainly worthy of comment. One might expect the inhabitants of our proud seafaring nation to be a little more aware, but it seems some visitors to our beaches have yet to grasp this complex phenomenon.

'Liverpool Coastguard are reminding people to check the tide times before venturing out to the coast today after they sent resources to rescue 93 people cut off by the tide in five different incidents this afternoon.' [Coastguard agency]

This story made the news because of the numbers involved, but a quick glance through the agency’s archives shows a regular stream of call-outs for people trapped by rising tides – making a change, I suppose, from rescuing terminally incompetent amateur mariners.

It’s a more extreme version of an event that can be seen almost every hot summer’s day in the East Coast resort habitually frequented by Clan Macheath, on a flat sandy beach that is fully covered by the tide for several hours twice a day.

Families come swarming down the steps to the beach encumbered by a plethora of deck-chairs, picnic baskets and inflatable toys. Once on the sand, they head straight for the water’s edge and set up a complex encampment a few feet from the waves, unpacking their picnics and hammering in their windbreaks.

And then the fun begins. Usually they have had enough time to settle down for a nap or are in the middle of lunch when they notice that the sea, instead of staying put in a well-behaved fashion, is advancing inexorably towards them. The resulting frantic scramble is highly entertaining for all onlookers.

Even better are the ones who, having staked out their territory, set out in search of ice-cream, drinks or entertainment (no chance!) and return to find their belongings bobbing about merrily in the North Sea (locals are reluctant to move them because of the tendency of the returning owners to express outrage first and ask questions later).

And best of all, perhaps, are the ones who arrive at the beach with all their paraphernalia at high tide and stare, open-mouthed, at the water that covers every square inch of sand - utterly perplexed despite the tide information widely available in local papers and online.

It might be worth MPs bearing these people in mind when considering Douglas Carswell’s early day motion calling for a rethink of planned cuts to the Coastguard service.