History made of sand

Whilst the North Sea is cold and grey most often the beaches here are amazing. With the exception of a few gaps for river entrances and harbours there’s a white, soft sand beach from Holland to the Dover straights. We sailed within site of the shoreline for 150 miles and pure white sand stretched as far as the eye could see. By the time you reach Dunkerque you’ve seen enough sand to know this is just one part of one hell of a beach, but this one is special. It was from here in 1940 that the BEF - The British Expeditionary Force was plucked off the beaches and lived to fight another day. The heroes, and boy were they all heroes, were not only the soldiers, sailors and airmen but also the fleet of “Little Ships”, pleasure boats like ours manned by ordinary weekend sailors who braved the stukas and artillery to ferry survivors out to the waiting ships. Many lost their lives but many more lives were saved and those men were the ones who were to defeat Rommel in the Desert and storm the beaches of Normandy 4 years later.

Things went very quiet in the Cockpit of Seminole Wind as we sailed serenely past the very beaches where, 85 years ago, men were experiencing unimaginable horror as bombs rained down unchecked. Our respect and gratitude to that generation of giants must not be allowed to fade and it hasn’t. We can’t stay long enough to enjoy the spectacle but in a few weeks time a flotilla of surviving Little Ships will once more cross the straights but this time they will be met, not by Stkas but by free Europeans waving flags.