As a part of my AN funding, and building on my “Quest ” work from last year, one of my objectives has been to visit the Goodwin Sands, which are exposed for short periods only, to gather sand from there: my intention being to use this either as the silica to form into glass or alternately as a medium to cast glass or bronze into.
The Goodwin Sands are notorious sandbanks in the middle of the English Channel, famous for being the “Ship Swallowers” and causing many wrecks. They lie adjacent to the Kent coast with their most northern tip opposite Sandwich Bay. It is possible to visit them and land on them for an hour, depending on tides. I wanted to go to the Goodwins to collect some sand to use in casting and/or to add to silica to make glass. I like the elusive nature of the Goodwins: to go on a quest implies a journey to a possibly mythical space. A journey to a site that is submerged for most of the day seemed a necessary part of my expedition, and the sand that I collected would have, for me, a magical property as a consequence.
Dover Sea Safari are the only organisation who organise this trip currently, although other boats will take you there to see the Grey seals which have colonised the site. Last year I tried five times to visit the Goodwin Sands but each trip was cancelled because of poor weather.
My time line for my bursary was that I would be doing most of my skills activity over the summer. With the glorious summer we have had this year, I thought I would get out to the Goodwins at least once, maybe more than once. But yet again, I found myself being thwarted. Despite the sun, EVERY trip I booked was cancelled due to high winds. The cancellation text would come the day before the intended trip and I began waiting for cancellations with a sense of the inevitable. After the fifth cancellation, I thought that perhaps I was destined never to get to the Goodwins.
But, ironically with the summer over, I finally got to the Sands. There were points on the trip when to be honest, I wished it had been cancelled. But overall it was a unique and dream-like experience.
We had to meet at Dover Sea Safari offices, on Dover sea front, at 6. There were 12 of us on the trip. We were given a briefing and life jackets, and then made our way through the harbour to the boat we were to go on, which is an RHIB speed boat (rigid-hulled inflatable boat). At this point, there was a light drizzle of rain.
Leaving the harbour was exhilarating, and we sped away from Dover parallel to the White Cliffs northwards up the coast towards Deal. I could see St Margaret’s Bay and the coast towards Kingsdown. However, it got increasingly wet and hard to look at the sea and coast line, with the drizzle getting more intense, and the spray flying up making us very wet. I had had a wish list of things I had hoped to see from the boat- porpoises-gannets-wrecks as we approached the Goodwins. But nothing! The visibility became appalling-which admittedly added to the sense of mystery-and despite wearing layers and waterproofs I felt drenched and cold, and the journey time to the sands started to feel interminable. My face felt pebble dashed with cold water, my body rigid, soaked to the skin. Probably the trip was about 45 minutes long but it felt longer after being comprehensively doused with cold sea water and driving rain.
However, as we approached the sands the rain subsided. It was so odd arriving at an expanse of sand in the middle of the channel, a sort of calm oasis after our journey. We were transferred by means of a tender (small rowing boat) to the sands: we jumped into this from the RHIB and one of the crew pulled it to the sands, by walking through the shallows-which was quite surreal in itself.
We had all taken our footwear off and left it in the RHIB, and had to jump into the shallows from the tender. The sea was surprisingly warm and the sand was incredibly soft and smooth, unlike any other sand I have walked on- I imagine this is because it is constantly churned over by the sea.
The landscape stretching out before us was an eerie vista of sandy ditches and rivulets with watery trails to the sea. It was very atmospheric. In appearance it was almost like a huge sandy wasteland, with the sand bank formations like trenches, and a sense of desolation compounded by the dreary weather, all made more mysterious by little visibility in any direction. The tide was going out when we arrived so new areas were being exposed, and bits that had been under water then became drier formations. The shifting sands…
We were allowed one hour to wander where we wanted, so we headed off towards the furthest point from the boat where the seals were. Given that there were no other markers-none of the wrecks I had anticipated-it seemed a point to focus on.
I imagine in sunshine the atmospherics of the sands would completely change, and they would be glittering and sparkling with the freshly washed sand and small channels of water. The sand was so clean and pure: absolutely devoid of any of the usual marine life or litter that you would normally expect to see on a beach. All I saw were a couple of sea bird feathers, and evidence of seals- marks of trails where they had hauled themselves (who do you describe seals moving on land?) into the sea, and droppings. I felt guilty sullying the sand with my footsteps. As we walked further we could see a whole colony of grey seals beside the sea- probably at least sixty. They were amazingly unfazed by us and only slowly disappeared into the sea as we approached.
The rain, which had stopped for half an hour, started again. We walked back towards where the boat was anchored. I stopped on the way to scoop up some of the sand. There are very contentious plans to dredge some of the Goodwins currently, which has divided local opinion, and I felt perhaps I shouldn’t be taking sand, although it was a tiny amount. I thought perhaps I could cast into it (something very small) or see if it could be incorporated into glass making.
The journey back to Dover was one of the most miserable outdoor experiences of my life. By the time we got back on the boat there was driving rain, and that, coupled with sea spray, meant that we were all utterly drenched by the time we arrived back in Dover. A group waiting to go out at the Sea Safari office looked dismayed when they saw the state of us!
However, looking back, making a very challenging journey to an elusive, shifting site in the middle of the English Channel seems highly apt. I came back with some sand from the Ship Swallowers and even without using this in a subsequent process, such as glass making or casting, feel as though it is a prize or Holy Grail to trigger more of my work exploring the foreshore and submerged spaces. More to follow soon….
