Having a destination when you're swimming makes all the difference; the swim becomes an adventure. You can't get more dramatic than London Bridge in Torquay. A natural arch, it just beckons you like a wicked mermaid. We swam through petrol blue sea, occasionally diving down and looking at
the pink and white rocks below. What a sense of majestic arrival when we reached the arch. And then, around the corner from there, past gorgeous barnacle-encrusted rocks, dotted with tiny pearly-white winkles, we found the most magical cave. As the swell pushed in and out, we rocked giddily up and down, excited and a little hysterical, inside the womb-like space. Thanks to Jonathan and Lynne for filming it; you can see a video
here.
I love a really low tide. It reveals rarely-seen marvels, and no more so than at London Bridge Natural Arch in Torquay. When we arrived at the beach it looked as though someone had pulled the plug out. The conditions were perfect, a calm blue sea, and as we approached London Bridge I spotted a 'new' cave - well more of a slit actually but exciting none the less - that I'd never seen before because I've not swum here on such a low tide before. Allan and I swam in and saw brilliantly outlandish Dead Men's Fingers, a form of soft coral that look more like Dead Men's, ahem, something elses, and then to our great excitement saw a beautiful array of pink life forms that we later discovered were Jewel Anemones. We then swam on through the majestic arch, and into a double-entranced cave with more exotic marine wildlife including Elephant Hide Sponge and Devonshire Cup Corals.
