A Stonechat clings to a dry stone wall, buffeted by the breeze, at the tip of the Cap de Carteret. White wing flashes, and pale apricot belly, bold and bright in the morning sun. Clattering call just audible above the roar of the wind.
Surf thunders ashore onto the beaches below.
Where the retreating tide leaves keepsake pools, as surety of its return.
The honeyed dawn light picks out the fiery reds and ochres of the igneous rock; and the gold of the sea washed sand.
Out beyond the silver domed Cap, . . .
. . . ten miles distant, the north shore of Jersey is visible. A pale smudge. Were it not for the covid-quarantine, a cross tide hop to St Helier (twenty nautical miles) would resolve our tidal riddle of yesterday. The Channel Islands lockdown, however, remains in full force . Precluding that option.
The squat stone lighthouse on the Cap stands to attention, as a sentry must. Discharging its watchful warning duty.
Whilst the tricolore on the semaphore cracks sharply in thirty knots of breeze. Tomorrow the forecast is for it to gust to forty knots, from the south west . Tuesday looks more promising, for passage making purposes. Twelve to eighteen knots out of the west. That might enable us to make St Cast le Guildo before dark.
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