Tide Fighting at Filey

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(A report from our outside reporter – Sandy Knees)

It was a lovely day at Filey on Sunday. We packed the picnic into the car and drove to the country park in Filey and parked up overlooking the bay at about 10am. Over a very nice cup of tea and a piece of cake we suffered a quick shower.

The beach itself is quite broad and very long, sandy and very nice. A lifeguard looks over the people and the sailing club use one end of the beach, there are lots of people on the beach, and personally I want to go back to spend a long time rock-pooling on Filey Brigg.

After our quick explore we took the buckets and spade, the windbreak and the picnic down to the beach and found some very nice ground by the sea. The weather was nice and I built the first of my sandcastles for the day, a bear sculpture about 7 feet long. The only problem was that I started a bit late and had to really rush to get it done before the tide came in. I did though…

As the tide came in we moved the windbreak/shelter up the beach as the sand bear was claimed by the waves.

Then at about 12:30 our friends turned up and promptly fell to the picnic. At about 12:57 I realised the competition was about to start so I ran (I do occasionally) to the organizer, claimed a spot, got a flag, and learnt the rules. They are very simple. They are …

You have to have the flag on a line between the two markers not buried beyond the crosspiece. There is no height restriction to the castle.

The competition has no prize, is organized by the rotary club, started at 1, and goes till the tide starts encroaching, then a whistle is blown and the competitors withdraw to watch and cheer the approaching tide.

I ran back to the windbreak/shelter to get the spades and buckets, ran back to the pitch as he was counting down from 10 to 1 to start, and then started digging. At this point I was on my own but a very nice man took pity on me and helped me dig a trench, then the friends and mrs SK came along (moving the windbreak and everything else) and we all fell to. So we went from being a team of me and a stranger to a team of 9 (technically you should only be 4 but counting was never my strongpoint).

We ended up with a smallish castle and lots of ring defences.

We did want to use the children in the team as a tide break or get one of the to kneel down and hold the flag as we cover them in sand. We’d have given them a snorkel. But we played by the rules.

When we stopped the heavens opened for 10 minutes, so everyone huddled under a shelter, and we watched the tide overwhelm defence after defence. Things were looking good for team Sandy Knees, as at one point we had the only sandcastle with out defences intact and dry around the main castle, all the others were surrounded by water. Then one big wave later and our defences had gone! It then came down to who had the biggest and hardiest mound. Ours fell first. But we have learnt some very valuable lessons (which I won’t put here in case you go to Filey next year).

The competition was eventually won by a team from the coastguards (and probably sponsored by blue circle cement says the bad loser).

The sun came out again, and it was ice creams and mugs of tea all round and drying off or changing clothes before heading off for fish and chips for dinner.

It was all in all a lovely day, and fun to be away from everything. One that will definitely go in the calendar for next year.

Sandy ‘Canute’ Knees.

• 6 Jul, 2009
• 9 likes

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