Saturday by the sea

Last weekend was spent by the seaside in Pembrokeshire. I've already talked about Sunday as Get Outside Day  but obviously when you're by the sea every day is a day for getting outside.

Saturday didn't start out too bad, weather wise - there's even some blue sky in the photos - so we headed to Solva, on the south coast of St Davids peninsula, for a walk around the village, calling in at the Window On Wales shop (because it's a holiday tradition), then walking to the sea.






Today Solva's a pretty tourist village, but the limekilns point to a past when the harbour was filled with more commercial craft than yachts.















Arrive in Solva at low tide and you might actually wonder where the sea is. There's sand, mud, and seaweed, and boats ready to float away on the tide, but no signs of the sea.

It's there - just hiding round the corner. As Solva's valley works its way to the sea it goes through a sharp almost right-angled bend!








And even then, small islands hide the entrance.












At low tide you can walk round to the next bay and back over the dividing ridge, but this day it would have required paddling









 - and I was the only one prepared to do that, so we headed back the sensible way.















Time to head for the North coast, and Abereiddi. Once the site of a slate quarry, today there's little here beyond a few ruins, some holiday cottages, and, probably its most famous feature, the Blue Lagoon which features in the Red Bull diving series, and is home to St Davids local sport of coasteering.








This is basically scrambling over sea-splashed rocks, and jumping off them into the sea. The sheer sides of the Blue Lagoon make it a relatively safe place for tombstoning, but I once heard coasteering described as 'everything your mother said you shouldn't do', and it's probably near the mark. Regardless, my daughter was off for an afternoon of it, as were this group of tiny figures on the rocks.

It's something I'd love to try but I doubt I have the energy to keep going for two hours, so I had a quieter afternoon - pottering about on the beach, walking along the coastal path, and walking round the ruins.

Lastly, because you can never visit too many beaches in one day, we headed west to Whitesands for a short walk along the sand before the rain came down.

To say 'it rained' isn't remotely strong enough. That evening a deluge fell, but at least it hadn't spoiled our day