The mountains of Cumbria stretched away to starboard, merging dramatically with leaden clouds as "various troughs and frontal systems" worked their way inland.From a great distance the towers of Windscale, sorry, Sellafield, nuclear installation were visible - a relic of the cold war which at various times has been the subject of some nasty accidents and pollution incidents. Other writers have complained of their film getting fogged as they passed by, but today any fog was due to the squall that descended as I drew close. The sea state picked up enough to get the boat surfing occasionally, and I was immensely grateful for the skeg that Mike Webb fitted in Anglesey - it makes these conditions much less tiring.
My original intention was to come ashore at Nethertown, but access there is across a rocky foreshore, a railway line, and a steep escarpment, so I decided to press on to St.Bees.
St.Bees holds some sort of romantic fascination for me, since reading Melvyn Bragg's Credo, a historical fiction of the life of the eponymous saint. It is easy to picture the life of the early Celtic church in these rolling hills, surrounded by pagan tribes, and dealing with the doctrinal conflicts with Rome.
Most of the modern town is hidden from seaward behind a ridge, and it is good to proceed to the northern end of town, where access is easy across a sandy beach and up the concrete slip in front of the ILB station. A very warm welcome awaits at the campsite just behind the beach.
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