Shipwreck Aftermath

Driftwood Structure, originally uploaded by seadipper.

A week after a ship was wrecked off Portland Bill, masses of timber were washed ashore on the Sussex coast. In Brighton, people were building structures like this on the beach.

Strict warnings were given against taking the timber away, even though it was battered and soaked with seawater. A week later a clean-up team arrived in Brighton. They began by clearing away the structures that people had made. They have some huge machines to collect the timber, consuming huge quantities of diesel.

This morning, because the swimmers can't use their arch because the lock has been glued up for the fifth time since the new year, we made up a fire below high water mark, using odd scraps, and the clearance people with their big machines promptly turned up even though there is a mile of beach they are working on, which looks as if they were trying to intimidate. But they didn't, and we had a nice swim and a warm-up afterwards in front of the blaze.

Apparently the wood is just going to be shredded. There is a mean-spirited way in which the whole thing has been dealt with.