Churning sea water

Found on the beach: sea foam. At first sight, there’s not much to the creamy-white frothy stuff that gets blown across the Brighton Beach shingle now and then, and, yet, look it up and you soon find yourself at the intersection of ocean chemistry, biology, and weather. 

When waves churn up water containing dissolved organic compounds - mostly proteins, lipids, dead plankton, fragments of seaweed, and microbial by-products - these act as surfactants, lowering surface tension and allowing bubbles to form and persist. The rougher the sea, the more vigorously the water column is mixed, drawing these organics from deeper layers to the surface. Brighton’s English Channel water, especially after storms that rip up seaweed beds, is particularly good at producing short-lived, bubbly foam.

A single litre of seawater can contain millions of phytoplankton cells, and when some species die off in blooms, the cellular breakdown releases long-chain molecules that are remarkably similar to the stabilisers used in food foams (like the head on a beer). That’s why foam can look so creamy despite being nothing more than air, water, and microscopic biological debris.

Globally, sea foam becomes more intriguing - and sometimes alarming. The most notorious examples are the ‘foam tsunamis’ of Australia’s east coast, where intense storm swell can drive metres-deep, cappuccino-coloured foam through seaside towns. In 2020 at Yamba and 2007 at Sydney’s beaches, whole cars disappeared under it. The foam itself was harmless; the force of the waves beneath it was not.

In California, the breakdown of Phaeocystis algal blooms has produced foam rich in proteins that can become irritant, stinging exposed skin. Conversely, along South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal coast, winter sardine runs produce a slick of fish oils that help create thick ivory-coloured foam valued by surfers because it flattens chop on the surface.

The strangest example comes from the North Sea, where researchers found sea foam rich in microplastics - tiny fragments that stick to the bubbles and are blown far inland, making foam one of the vectors by which coastal microplastic pollution travels beyond the shoreline. The foam acts like a sticky film, picking up plastic shards, tyre particles and airborne dust.

Foam can also carry nutrients and spores. After the giant Sargassum blooms in the Caribbean, decaying mats generate surfactants that fuel disproportionately large foam lines on beaches; these sometimes carry bacterial loads high enough to make cleanup crews wear masks. In contrast, in Iceland and parts of the Baltic, sea foam streaks can be associated with whitish pumice ash, swept into the surf after volcanic eruptions.

Even the colour can be telling. Most foam is white because the bubbles scatter light uniformly, but brown foam signals a higher concentration of organic matter; greenish foam often appears during phytoplankton bloom collapse; and pinkish foam has occasionally been recorded after massive blooms of pigmented dinoflagellates - the same organisms responsible for some red tides.

Brighton’s foam, by comparison, is modest, fleeting and almost always benign. It’s simply the English Channel exhaling - a reminder of the constant churning, mixing, and invisible biological life just offshore, thrown up in small bright heaps that the wind leaves on the stones for a few minutes before carrying them away.

More information can be found at National Ocean Service, Science Direct, Marine Insight and How Stuff Works. The photograph of foam on the beach at Yamba was found at the BBC (Nature’s Weirdest Events).

Sickert’s Brighton Beach Pierrots

The German-born British painter and printmaker Walter Sickert spent part of the late summer of 1915 in Brighton, staying near the seafront and working intensively from the life around him. The temporary pierrot stage on the shingle opposite the Metropole Hotel quickly became one of his most productive subjects. Night after night through August and September he watched the troupe’s performances, sketching from the deckchairs, from the promenade railings, and from the side of the stage. 

By then Sickert was 55, a former actor and long-established painter whose training with Whistler and friendship with Degas had sharpened his interest in theatre, gesture and the mood of everyday scenes. Brighton offered all of that in a new key: a makeshift outdoor stage, shifting Channel light and the deep backdrop of the seafront terraces. These on-the-spot drawings became the basis of his Brighton Pierrots artworks, completed soon after. Their angled viewpoints, reddish evening sky and rows of empty chairs have often been read against the wartime context. Brighton was hosting convalescent soldiers, the younger crowds were largely absent, and distant gunfire could sometimes be heard across the water. Two principal versions survive, one at the Ashmolean and another at Tate Britain, both built from the same 1915 sketches.

Sickert’s relationship with the coast did not end there. After his marriage to the painter Thérèse Lessore in 1926 he lived for a short period in Brighton before returning to London, and he continued to visit the town throughout the 1920s and 1930s. From these stays came further seafront works. The Front at Hove (1930) captures the promenade at Adelaide Crescent, with a bowler-hatted older man - widely thought to echo Sickert himself - walking beside a younger woman. Another canvas, often titled The Chain Pier, Brighton, turns to the earlier Victorian landmark and sets small figures and beached boats against the curve of the old suspension pier. Smaller Brighton pieces, including a study from Bedford Square, also trace back to his 1915 notes and later returns.

No verified photograph places Sickert physically on Brighton Beach, but contemporary press mentions in the 1930s note him among the seasonal visitors enjoying Brighton’s autumn light. Between those references and the cluster of seafront paintings from 1915 to 1930, the seafront can be seen as a recurring source of material, first discovered during that wartime summer when the pierrots took to the shingle.

Hove Lagoon watersports

On a bright salt-washed morning the blue clubhouse of Lagoon Watersports beside Hove Lagoon looks almost theatrical, its white lettering impelling passers-by to learn, improve, progress. The building, raised slightly above the path and fronted by a tangle of kayaks, Pico dinghies and wakeboard gear, has become one of the most recognisable structures on the Brighton Beach seafront. What began as a modest watersports base more than thirty years ago is now woven into the daily life of the lagoon and the lives of thousands who first stood on a paddleboard, hauled a sail upright or felt the sudden tug of a wake-cable here.

Lagoon Watersports was formally incorporated in 1989 and has been run by the same management since the mid-1990s. Its chosen setting, Hove Lagoon, is an artificial remnant of the old Salt Daisy Lake, a brackish hollow that was gradually formalised during interwar landscaping of the Kingsway (see Brighton Toy Museum website which is also the source of the photograph below). The company turned this shallow, wind-swept waterbody into a training ground for beginners, school groups and would-be sailors. Over the years its programmes expanded across two sites - sheltered lessons and wakeboarding at the lagoon, and yacht sailing and power-boat sessions from Brighton Marina.

The lagoon has regularly thrown Lagoon Watersports into the local press. When the first cable-tow wakeboarding system went live in 2011 it drew a flurry of interest as one of the earliest installations of its type in the UK. By 2013 the centre was running three cables, including a beginner line and a rail section that drew riders from across the region. Newspapers ran bright, summery photographs of young wakeboarders skimming across the lagoon, a striking contrast to the placid model-yacht scene once associated with the site.

There have been quirkier stories too. One Argus report captured the arrival of paddleboard yoga on the lagoon, describing early sessions wobbling across the water. Another covered a women’s watersports day that saw first-timers taking to kayaks and paddleboards in breezy conditions, relishing the sense of achievement even when the wind and chop made the lagoon feel more like open sea. These sat alongside the regular run of charity challenges on icy January mornings, youth groups completing multi-sport days in howling south-westerlies, and the occasional windsurfer being blown clean across the lagoon and into the reeds, to the delight of watching schoolchildren.

The company’s daily rhythm sees staff usher in wetsuited school groups, kayaks carried to the slipway in lines, and the wake-cable’s soft mechanical hum drifting across the water whenever conditions are calm. The blue clubhouse stands at the heart of it all, part workshop, part briefing room, part symbol of Brighton and Hove’s multivarious beach culture.

The European fan palm

Found on the beach: Chamaerops humilis, commonly known as the European fan palm. It grows low and wide on the shingle, its fronds rattling in even the gentlest seafront breeze, looking half like a survivor from some Mediterranean headland and half like an escapee from a forgotten Victorian planting scheme. Brighton Beach is one of the few places in Britain where this species seems entirely at home. The salt spray, the glare, the scouring winds that flatten other ornamentals all suit it perfectly, and its scruffy, sun-bleached skirt of old leaves gives it the faintly rakish air of a visitor who has stayed long enough to become a local.

Chamaerops humilis is the only palm native to continental Europe, growing naturally around the western Mediterranean from southern Spain to Sicily (see pic below from Wikipedia). It is a compact, clumping species, often forming several short trunks rather than a single tall one, and its fans are stiff, segmented and edged with tiny teeth. The fronds emerge a bold green but quickly fade to a straw colour in coastal exposure, creating the characteristic thatch of shredded leaves seen on the beach. In spring it produces small yellow flowers at the base of the leaf stems, followed later by clusters of reddish fruit that are technically edible but rarely palatable. What makes the species so useful in Brighton is its tolerance: it survives drought, cold snaps, poor soils and salt-laden winds, and will root happily in rubble or shingle where more delicate ornamentals fail.

Historically, the European fan palm has been familiar to travellers since antiquity, appearing in early herbal texts for its fibres, which were used for rope, brushes and stuffing. Its leaves were woven into mats, baskets and the rustic rain capes once worn by shepherds in Spain and Portugal. Renaissance gardeners admired it as a curiosity from classical lands and often tried to coax it through northern winters, though with little success until more robust varieties were introduced in the nineteenth century. By the early twentieth century it had become a reliable feature of British seaside towns, planted in the optimistic belief that palms could summon the air of a warmer climate. Brighton adopted the idea enthusiastically, dotting the seafront with species that could endure the Channel’s temperament, and Chamaerops humilis proved one of the hardiest.

The palm on the beach now stands as part of that long horticultural experiment, a living remnant of the city’s desire to appear just a little more southern than it really is. Walkers pass it without comment, but it quietly thrives, shrugging off winter storms and growing a little wider each year. It is both out of place and perfectly placed, a Mediterranean native that has found its own niche on an English shingle shore.

Sources: Royal Horticultural Society, Kew Gardens, Harrod Outdoors, Wikipedia.

Hooray for Horatio’s

At the far end of Brighton’s Palace Pier, and settled easily into the funfair area, sits Horatio’s, an elegant all-purpose bar with what must be nearly 40 years of history. It evolved as the pier shifted from Victorian theatreland into full-blown seaside spectacle, and by the late 1980s it had become the pier’s resident big, breezy social hall - a place where the smell of sea spray and hot doughnuts drifted through the doors and where the floor could tremble slightly whenever the Turbo Coaster launched its cars overhead.

In 1984, when the pier was purchased by the Noble Organisation, it introduced free admission and new attractions. Two years later, it also embarked upon an £8 million refurbishment and enlargement programme which included new entrance kiosks, a remodelling of the Palace of Fun, and the opening of both the Fish and Chip Café, Victoria’s Bar (now the Palm Court Restaurant - see Fish and chips or moules) and Horatio’s Bar.

As the pier modernised, so did Horatio’s. It grew from a simple drinking space into one with occasional music events. Local bands began to play weekend sets, filling the glass-fronted room with Brighton’s familiar mix of covers, ska, indie guitars and the odd sea-shanty revival. Jazz arrived too, and Horatio’s became one of the venues used for the Brighton Jazz Festival, hosting double-header evening concerts with world-class players performing as waves thudded beneath the ironwork. Dance nights joined the offerings - Cuban salsa sessions with live percussion and teaching pairs leading crowds through rueda circles under the rope-woven ceiling.

A collaboration with The Latest led to a variety of performances not just music but spoken word events, film showings, club nights, art exhibitions, comedy nights. ‘We host everything,’ the Latest website says ‘from the monthly talk-based Cafe Scientfique and the infamous Catalyst Club events, to music shows hosted by The Great Escape, burlesque performance nights, Fringe theatre, charity events, kids events and loads more.’ Latest TV, meanwhile, broadcasts live interviews and band sessions directly from Horatio’s. 

A major refit in the late 2010s gave Horatio’s a more modern coastal look - rope-woven ceiling panels, timber slats and bi-fold doors that open straight onto the sea. But its essence hasn’t changed. This is still where parents take a breather between rides, where football fans crowd around big screens, where local musicians cut their teeth on stormy midweek evenings, and where - now and then - the whole place rocks gently when a winter sea pushes hard against the pier piles.

Sources: Wikipedia and My Brighton and Hove (but note the text here is taken from Tim Carder’s printed book, The Encyclopaedia of Brighton).

The Mystery of the Crowded Boats

Here is the 20th of 24 stained glass window designs on the Palace Pier which AI and I are using as inspiration for some of these BrightonBeach365 daily posts - see Stained Glass Window 1 for background. This image shows four small boats are clustered together on lively, broken water, their hulls overlapping as if pressed close at a busy mooring. In the foreground, a yellow boat and a white-and-red one tilt toward each other, their cabins and decks picked out in clean, angular lines. Behind them lie a vivid red boat and a pale grey one, half-hidden but still distinct, riding at slightly different angles as if shifting with the tide. Strong verticals rise from all four, suggesting taut mooring lines or slender masts, while the sea around them is fragmented into sweeping bands of deep blue, light blue and green, giving the whole scene a sense of movement and bright coastal weather.

A limerick starter

Four boats on a restless blue sea

Were tangled as tangled could be.

Said the yellow one: ‘Mate,

Is this some kind of date?’

Replied red: ‘Only if you moor with me.’

The Mystery of the Crowded Boats (with apologies to Enid Blyton)

Julian spotted the cluster of boats first. They were moored oddly close together, their bright colours bobbing on the choppy water just east of the old West Pier. The four of them were almost nose-to-nose, as if whispering secrets. George shaded her eyes and frowned.

‘They weren’t like that yesterday,’ she said. ‘Look - they’re practically jammed together. Something’s happened.’

Timmy barked in agreement and pulled at his lead. Anne, who always noticed the smaller details, pointed to the sandy shingle at their feet.

‘There are fresh imprints here,’ she said. ‘Two sets - and one of them looks as though the person was carrying something heavy. The prints sink deeper.’

Dick, who was already scrambling towards the nearest groyne, gave a low whistle. ‘And here’s another clue - look at this rope end. It’s been cut clean through. Someone’s taken one of the boats out, and put it back in a terrible hurry.’

George’s eyes shone. ‘Let’s hire a dinghy from the fishing hut and go over to them. If someone’s been up to mischief, we might still catch them.’

Minutes later, they were rowing hard through the shifting green-blue water, Timmy perched at the bow like a proud figurehead. As they drew nearer, the four boats looked even stranger. The yellow one was scuffed along its side, the grey one had a new dent near the stern, and the white-and-red boat was sitting lower in the water than any of them liked.

‘Julian!’ Anne cried. ‘It’s overloaded!’

They pulled alongside, and Dick leaned over. Inside the half-sunken boat lay a wooden crate, still wet and half wedged beneath the seat. Rough stencilled letters ran across its side: BEACH HUT 243 - KEEP SHUT.

‘It must have come loose from its mooring wherever that was, and drifted here’ Julian said. ‘And now it’s stuck between the other boats.’

George tugged at the crate and the lid came away with a snap. Inside were neat rows of shiny tin canisters, each labelled MODEL ROCKET FUEL - CAUTION.

‘Rocket fuel!’ Dick said in astonishment. ‘What on earth is it doing here?’

Julian looked back towards the beach, where the line of colourful beach huts curved towards Hove.

‘I think someone’s planning something they shouldn’t,’ he said. ‘And whoever keeps hut 243 may be in danger, not involved. We must inform the coastguard immediately.’

Timmy barked triumphantly. The children tied the red boat up to the others, and hauled the crate into their own dinghy before setting off to return to shore. Behind them, the four boats rocked together as though relieved to have given up their secret.

By the time the sun dipped behind the West Pier ruins, the Famous Five had uncovered a plot, saved a string of beach huts from a fiery mishap, and earned themselves enormous ice-creams from the grateful hut-owner - just the sort of ending, Anne thought happily, that Brighton Beach always seemed to give them.

Deep sea angling in Hove

At the far western end of Brighton Beach, where Hove meets Portslade-by-Sea, and where the millionaires enjoy their private patches of pebbles, there’s a distinctive looking building - a Martello tower? - with shack attached. Small boats are tied up alongside, and there are notices advising one not to talk to winch operators except in an emergency. This is the Hove Deep Sea Anglers Club, well over a century old now, and going strong.

The club was founded in 1909 by a Hove policeman with the aim of enabling local residents to take small boats from the beach and fish offshore. At a time when beach-launched craft were common along the Sussex coast, the club provided a formal base for what had become a popular pastime on the Hove foreshore. Its early wooden hut, erected in 1922 on the Western Esplanade, marked the club’s first permanent home.

Over the decades, Hove Deep Sea Anglers became known not just for fishing, but for colourful camaraderie and elaborate tales. Annual dinners in the 1920s featured the reading of classic verses like the Fisherman’s Prayer, and the evening was often filled with jokes and friendly banter. One legendary member, Alderman A. W. F. Varley, was renowned for winning over fifty prizes for sailing, rowing, fishing, and even cycling, which made him something of a local celebrity.

The club has several record catches in its logbooks. The story goes that one angler landed a salmon so large that, as he recounted, ‘even I may never need to lie’. In recent memory, there have been memorable weekends where boats returned so laden with fish that spontaneous beachside barbecues erupted, with the catch turned into a feast for all. Not all adventures ended with triumph: a famous Safety First demonstration in 1933 saw the Shoreham lifeboat ‘rescue’ a boat lent by the club secretary, giving the club a moment in local lore and sending up a cheer among members for its commitment to safety and spectacle.

The club’s history includes some lively disputes, particularly with neighbouring clubs during annual competitions. Once, a neighbouring club accused Hove anglers of ‘over-baiting,’ sparking a good-natured war of words that lasted for months. Another time, the mistaken identity of the club’s circular extension - often thought to be a Martello tower but not actually built until the 1980s - became a running joke among members, with playful bets taken on how many tourists would ask about its ‘Napoleonic’ origins each summer.

In late October 1996, high winds hit the Sussex coast early in the morning, parts of the clubhouse were demolished, the roof caved in, several walls collapsed, the snooker room was levelled and the interior of the club was under two feet of water. Fortunately, so the club’s own history states, ‘the bar survived unscathed, much to the relief of the 450 members’ and the repair bill amounted to around £20,000.

Today, the club maintains a fleet of around a dozen boats, launched most weekends of the year. It stands as a long-standing landmark and one of the last reminders of the era when small-boat fishing was a prominent leisure pursuit directly connected to the beach. Alongside its angling programme, the club hosts lunches, bar events, darts and snooker leagues, poker nights and seasonal gatherings, sustaining a membership that mixes long-standing families with new recruits drawn by its maritime heritage - often lured by tales of monster catches, fierce competitions, and a touch of chaos in local lore.

Main sources: Judy Middleton’s excellent Hove in the Past, and Hove Deep Sea Anglers.