Blast Beach
This is Blast Beach just south of Seaham Harbour in County Durham, named for the blast furnaces which used to be here in the 19th century. Later it was used as a dumping ground for waste from the nearby collieries but mother nature and a clean up project are returning some of the lost beauty. The cliffs are magnesium limestone and ironically the spoil from the pits which caused such problems for the local marine life has helped to preserve the land from erosion. More recently it was used as one of the locations for the film Alien 3 as the surface of the planet.
I visited in the late afternoon after spending some time down in the harbour. The wind was somewhat stronger than I would’ve liked when perched up on the edge of a cliff, but it did help give these great waves. The picture perfect clouds up in a beautiful blue sky were zipping along as the wind howled and threatened to blow my tripod over the edge. So once I had this shot I decided to beat a hasty retreat, figuring I’d tempted fate enough for one day.
