Words remaining: 9,935

A Passage to Paignton

My girlfriend and I stand on the beach, carefully covering ourselves in a thick layer of sun cream, which is followed by a layer of Vaseline. The beach, Torre Abbey Sands, is packed with people; dedicated sun worshippers making the most of the British summer. Behind the beach the road is equally busy, choked with an endless, slow moving stream of cars that crawls along the coast, ferrying its frustrated passengers to Paignton, the next town along the English Riviera. We too are heading for Paignton, though we have elected not to follow the three mile flow of this stifling, stupefying river of glistening metal. Instead, with one last, anxious adjustment of the goggles we plunge headfirst into the shallow waters. We are swimming to Paignton.

Everything around me is a mix of blue and bubbles until my head emerges from below the waves. I take a deep breath and launch into my stroke. Slowly settling into a rhythm, with every stroke I see the sea floor rushing away, sloping gently down into nothingness until I am surrounded by a rainbow of blues. At the surface, where the sun streams through, the sea is of the palest blue, gradually fading through an entire spectrum until, far below us, is the deepest blue imaginable, bordering on black and stretching away to a depth unknowable. With each breath I take I am wrenched away from this silent world of mystery, my eyes momentarily catching sight of the people lounging on the beach, the cars gridlocked on the road or the vast emptiness of the open sea.

Within minutes we have left the beach behind, rounding the first of the rocky headlands that separate the small, sheltered coves of the Torbay coast. Conditions are perfect, the sea flat and calm, and the coolness of the water refreshing compared to the heat of the town we have left behind. For company we have only the screeching gulls that circle overhead and the occasional cormorants perched serenely on a rocky islet that pokes above the water. The dark red cliffs tower above us, fringed with a thin line of green grass, and to the other side the sea stretches away to the horizon. Although only a few hundred metres from a busy beach, and the main road, we are completely alone, isolated in a true wilderness.

We cross the next bay and round the next headland, where the scene changes dramatically. The wind, which had been virtually non-existent onshore, picks up as we leave the shelter of the bay, pushing hard against us, driving up a serious chop and flinging flecks of water from the top of the waves into our faces. We push on but the wind never tires and the water begins to feel colder as the battle against the weather saps our energy. We swim as close to the shore as possible, but the rough red sandstone cliffs that rise vertically from the churning water offer no chance of respite. The danger of being dashed against them forces us to keep away. Slowly, very slowly we progress, forcing our way through the water until eventually, with great relief, we pass the tip of the headland and move into the sanctuary of the next bay. Rounding that headland has broken the back of the journey, but has come perilously close to breaking us as well. Cold and exhausted we drag ourselves ashore on Hollicombe Beach and take great pleasure in lying on the huge, flat boulders that litter the beach.

Tired as we are, almost asleep on the warm, soothing rocks, we have little choice but to give up our berths and gingerly head back out to sea. The water, which felt so invigorating on our first entry, is brutally cold but we know that the distance remaining is small. We push out around the set of high red cliffs that separates this beach from the next, bracing ourselves for the worst the weather can throw at us. Fortunately, this headland is smaller than the last and the wind barely raises a wavelet, giving us time to take stock of our surroundings. High up in the side of the cliff stands an old wooden door, with a row of precarious steps cut into the cliff below leading down to the water’s edge. It conjures images of smugglers and adventure, a secret world invisible from the shore.

As we land on the next beach, Preston, we know that the distance to Paignton Beach is tiny, but we are beaten. We console ourselves with the fact that Preston is, technically, part of Paignton and walk the rest of the way to Paignton Beach along the road, dripping wet and in only our swimming costumes, while the slow moving traffic trundles blissfully by.