Given the, typically Folkestonian, glorious weather we have been enjoying of late, it is no surprise that the team convened at the beach hut for the opening swim of the season on Saturday. Our previous dip had been a brief and painful experience on New Year’s Day, but now, on a sunny April afternoon, with a brisk easterly wind blowing, the sea looked positively inviting. Well, it may have looked inviting, but it was still pretty damned nippy, and following our prefferred pattern of; in, splash about a bit and swear, get out, get back in again, splash about a bit and swear some more, then get out while we can still function, we were towelling ourselves off and beginning to feel human again, when, alerted by the excited activity of some gulls just offshore, we spotted a large dark animal in the water, which then plunged out of sight below the waves.

Realising it had to be a dolphin or a seal, we knew that if we kept watching, it would have to come up for air, and we might get the chance of a further sighting. I grabbed my camcorder and scanned the sea hopefully. Then, quite some way from where we saw it originally, it re-emerged briefly, and I was able to get this brief snippet of footage. We reflected on how things might have been if the seal had arrived minutes earlier, while we were in the water, but had to conclude that it could not be honoured with club member status, as it had arrived late for the session. Harsh, maybe, but scupulously fair.

For the summer of 2004, Folkestone’s shingle beaches were out of bounds, as contractors worked round the clock, bringing rocks in on barges at high tide, and distributing and shaping them into pre-designed formations at low tide. Another fully loaded barge would often be seen anchored off-shore, ready for the next hgh tide.

The caterpillar tractor on board the barge, would shovel the rocks into the sea. They, of course, would sink without trace, in a dramatic illustration of the difference in height of the water at high and low tides.

Often this activity would be taking place at night, and the clanking and splashing could be heard up in the town.

At low tide, the rocks were individually moved and placed with painstaking precision, to build the formations that have become so familiar.

The Spacious and Gracious team enjoying Folkestone’s beach last November.

For a thoroughly informative account of the sea defences from Dover to Dungeness, by Nick Spurrier, Click here