Swimming to Silver Cove

South westerlies have been battering Devon, so I was in search of somewhere sheltered to swim.  Elberry Cove, in between Paignton and Brixham, was the obvious choice, tucked as it is in the SW corner of Torbay, with its back to the gales.  We arrived to find beautiful calm, verdigris water and as we waded in on a very low tide it felt really quite warm.  I've swum here many times and have always been curious about a little cove further along;  I assumed it had no name but my son was looking at a map on a board by the beach and discovered it is called Silver Cove.  We ended up swimming over to it, seeing herons, black backed gulls and cormorants on the way.  I had assumed it would be too cold to swim that far - about half a mile there and back - but the water was lovely. A few of us climbed out to 'claim' the beach; there was no silver or indeed any other treasure in evidence, perhaps it gets its name from the pale stones.
Thanks to Jackie Wills for the first picture.

Elberry antics

Sometimes you have to be just a little bit cunning when planning a swim.  Relentless rainy windy weather has resulted in unattractive seas, and after another spell away from Devon I wanted my homecoming dip to be as perfect as possible.  Cue forensic examination of the weather forecast, including intense assessment of wind direction, rain and various webcams, and I concluded Elberry Cove in Torbay would be the best bet.  Rachel and I met Jackie, Allan and Geoffrey over there, and were delighted to find brightening skies, and a flat sea with just a gentle swell.  The water was its usual special shade of green, as it always is over there, and we flung ourselves in, much to the amusement of various people sitting with their dogs on the beach.  As we swam, a gig boat hoved into view, with our friends Queenie and Trista on board, who'd come to say hello.

Toasty swimming

The great advantage of a drysuit is that you can wear your thermal longjohns while you go swimming.  Some might argue, why would you want to, but Amanda would not be in their camp.  She has a mission to be warm at all times.  We decided to test out her drysuit at Elberry Cove, where the water was an exotic emerald colour - just the sensory boost we needed in the dullness of winter.  We couldn't wait to get in, but were held up by the process of getting her into the suit.  We both got into a muck sweat wrestling with it, and had to cut the neck to get her head through. Once in the water, she floated around like the Michelin Man, and perfected a sort of aquatic waddling stroke, before working out how to let some of the air out. 

Adorable Elberry

As we approached Elberry Cove in Paignton, the sun miraculously came out, illuminating the sparkling emerald water. I had wanted to show the children the eel grass, by swimming out over it, but unfortunately the visibility was hopeless in the middle of the bay, where the grass is found, because of the rain and the recent Easterlies. So we swam close in around the rocks towards Broadsands instead, where the water was clearer, and saw lots of wrasse and sand eels. Then, as we stood drying ourselves on the beach afterwards, we saw shoals of fish breaking the smooth surface of the water, like sudden pulses of electricity. I assume these fish were mackerel, but does anyone know why they break the surface from time to time?

The nature trail

When I was little I wanted to be a Blue Peter presenter, and would walk around the fields near my home pointing out the things of interest to my imaginary audience. Today's swim was a bit like that, except the Val Singleton figure was my friend Sue who has an encylopaedic knowledge of our marine flora and fauna. We were swimming from Broadsands to Elberry in Paignton, where there is a bed of rare eel grass, home to sea horses. You swim alongside the crinkly coastline with its strange rocks like sculptures created by hippies on acid. As well as the delicate eel grass we saw breadcrumb sponge, sea lettuce, dulse, a starfish and sea potatoes (yes, sea potatoes). The latter are a type of furry urchin; there were lots of their shells on the seabed.

Swimming through fairyland

Tor Bay has always been a place where ships shelter. Today, despite all the gales, it was serenely calm, and there was a magical sense of otherworldliness, a paused dimension, as we entered the water. We swam from Elberry Cove to Broadsands, past a series of crinkly, pointed rock formations that looked as though they should be home to mythical creatures. My very knowledgeable friend Sue tells me they are the fossilised remains of corals which grew here 360 million years ago, when the sea was shallow and tropical. There were caves and little inlets and channels to swim through. It felt like another kingdom.