Beached fishing boats at Lulworth Cove

I've always liked looking at small fishing boats - especially scruffy tough looking boats, with heaped torn webs of nets on their foredecks - marineros with oily hands lounging in the cockpit - diesel fumes hanging in the air -

I've seen such boats in a number of places - at Portree, under a sky the colour of slate, the fishing boats were jostled by an icy gale - all the weather you could experience in one day was happening - fragile sunshine, sleet, rain - piles of brightly coloured fish crates were stacked up on the stones - Sandy Denny was singing Si tu dois partir on the juke box in the pier cafe at Uig - at Akyaka, grannies mended the nets, the ship's cat slept on the sun bleached deck of one boat - the water beyond the river was warm and turquoise -

Here, just up from Lulworth Cove, the fishing boats are beached - their hulls now motionless - rusty propellors are now still and visible to your gaze - visitors to the cove walk past the fishing boats - one boat is beached right next to the front gardens of the Coastguard Cottages - it's a day with blue sky and sunshine -

A hundred yards away is the beach of the cove - there's a small concrete slipway - a winch - and then, even within the cove, the sea is turbulent and heaving - white horses glittering in the bright sunlight - two boys were swept off the rocks at the mouth of the cove in a storm - the father of one of the drowned boys talked about that night to us, to me and Anne -