A swim at Lydstep Caverns
I've been enjoying swimming with the Bluetits this summer. I am cautious about sea swimming, but the Bluetits are active enough that there's always someone that wants to swim when I do, and usually someone who has already got a convenient time planned.
So far I've mostly swum at Freshwater East, once or twice at Angle: both of them conventionally pretty sandy beaches, and at Hazelbeach, which is a shingle beach inside the Cleddau estuary. A bit weedy, but you can go straight into the water and out without getting sand all over you.
Of the swims I've done so far, the most memorable was definitely the swim at Lydstep - a month ago now, but I wanted to make a post about it and have only just got round to it. The hillsides were full of tufts of pink thrift as we made our way down the winding path and steps to a steep cleft in the rocks.
It's a really steep scramble down, and you have to avoid the weedy rocks, which look like this from the other side, and are super-slippery. The rest of the rocks are just sharp and fierce.
But when we got to the other side, at low tide, we found this wonderful beach and a clear blue sea :
And under the cliffs, there's this huge cavern filled with a deep green pool.
We swam in the pool. This photo was taken from the inner side of it, and you can just see the sea on the other side of the sandbar. It was cold, but after the sunny scramble over the rocks, that was rather welcome.
You could swim around the corner into the blue shade of the cavern and out through a different cave-entrance.
And then wander out into the sea on the other side of the sandbar, which honestly felt pretty warm at this point.
A steep old climb back up the cliffs afterwards, but well worth it.