Coryton Cove

Looking up at the tunnel

cheeky seagull 

Smugglers' Tunnel. Pic by Ray Girvan

There was a last-minute post on Facebook from Gilly that she was swimming at Coryton Cove in Dawlish.  I leapt in the car and decided to join her and Charlotte and Michelle who also came along. I arrived first and waited with a gull who was cheekily perched on top of a beach hut.  The sea was not exactly attractive.  It was brown and the beach was absolutely covered with sea weed, brought in by the persistent Easterlies.  Of course once we were in, it was lovely, if a trifle bouncy, and we swam round towards the twin peaks - or 'horses' of Horse Cove, and Gilly showed us the extroardinary smugglers' tunnel half way up the cliff.  Someone has even bothered to build brick stairs inside it. Sadly we didn't get a picture up close. Gilly was the only one who managed to climb up to the tunnel (I got nervous and chickened out)  but was still getting to grips with her camera and didn't manage to get a shot.  However she did manage to take a pic of me looking up at her from the beach!  Meanwhile, a little research on the internet shows that there was an alarming cliff fall here back in 1885 in which three people died.  A disturbing thought, and of course the cliffs are still very unstable today.

Gilly with the 'horses' behind

The mysterious sea slug

After a swim at Coryton Cove at Dawlish I was wandering along the shore when I came upon a small creature on the sand which stopped me in my tracks. It looked quite outlandish, with bizarre green iridescent 'fur' on one side. I thought perhaps it was a sea slug, but a friend tells me it is a sea mouse. I never even realised there was such a thing as a sea mouse. It is a sort of worm, and is apparently an 'unusual species which is rarely seen'. I believe it is quite local to the South Devon and Dorset coast. The shells on the beach were stunning. Scallops in all colours from black to pink, as well as slipper limpets, winkles, whelks and cockles.