If you wait for golden hour at Margate ’s Walpole Bay, every colour of the sky is reflected in the pool water. On some days the surface is so still and so vast it’s impossible to see where the horizon ends and the sea begins. Floating here can feel a little like flying.
Built in 1937, the Walpole Bay tidal pool covers four acres, making it the largest in Britain. I began swimming there after the pandemic when I needed to escape London, and soon became obsessed with tidal pools, which fill with seawater on an ebbing tide but remain protected from currents. At the Trinkie in Wick, half an hour from John o’Groats, North Sea waves beat ferociously against the cliffs, rendering much of the coastline inaccessible.
Yet hidden among the vicious rocks is a glorious lazuline pool that allows for safe swimming. These pools drew me in as a metaphor of sorts; a safe place to swim in turbulent waters. When my younger brother, Tom, died of bone cancer in 2016, my grief felt overwhelming.
I needed to dip my toes into my emotions – anger, regret, guilt and confusion – without being swept away, so I travelled to every tidal pool in Britain and wrote about my adventure in The Tidal Year . My hope was that cold water could be a natural antidote to loss, and “fix” me. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did find people who shared my passion, many of whom were also searching for something in the chilly water.
All the tidal pools I visited have lively communities that swim r.