Looks lovely doesn’t it? Just like a Caribbean island
However this isn’t St Lucia, it’s the beach at North Berwick, just half an hour from Edinburgh by train, and those light traces are streams of sand being blown across the beach at sandblasting velocity.
We had planned to take the Seabird Safari boat out to the gannet colony on Bass Rock as a treat for the younger members of our party, but the sea was too rough for the RIB boats to go out.
Not that it was much different for the eider ducks who were mostly keeping their beaks down in the lee of the Scottish Seabird Centre. The black and white birds are the drakes and a bit later in the afternoon I witnessed two of them fighting, trying to impress some of the less brightly coloured females.
Out at sea we could just about make out the shapes of the few gannets, shags and gulls that were braving the elements, but as we could see later on the Seabird Centre’s (admission £7.95 adults) remote cameras out of Bass Rock, Fidra and May, most of the birds were keeping their heads down.
So after checking on the birds we headed for a spot of lunch at the Ship Inn in Quality Street. Here true Scottish pluck was being put to the test by attempting an open air barbecue in a howling gale. We left them to it and went for fish and chips next door, at North Berwick Fry. I thought at £51.70 for five of us, it was a little on the expensive side for a chip shop, but the batter on our haddock was exceptionally light and fluffy and we did have a few beers.
So after lunch we had a potter around the town, visiting the recommended Sugar Mountain sweet shop for some souvenirs, before a final walk along the wind blasted beach,
to get a final view of Bass Rock with its white covering of nesting gannets, the largest single colony of Atlantic gannets in the world.
Photos copyright QueenMab/Shipscook Photographic. contact simon.ball3@btopenworld.com for commercial reuse
Pictures are lovely looks like a great place to go!
Faffajane x
It’s a lovely little town and the seabirds are something else if you can get out to see them