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Risking life and limb on a visit to Plémont beach
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Last Sunday morning, much like naval aviator Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell in the 1986 action movie Top Gun, I was poised on a danger zone.
According to warning signs to my left, my right, from whence I had boldly come and also in front of me, my next step could possibly be my last.
However, unlike the Tom Cruise character, I was not at the controls of a F-14A Tomcat about to be launched from the deck of the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier to engage in aerial combat with the enemy. Nothing as exciting, I’m afraid. I was standing at the top of the steps leading down to Plémont beach armed with nothing more threatening than a ‘chucker’ with which to throw a ball for the Jack Russells to chase, and with just my own two feet to propel me forwards.
Apparently, the ‘dangers’ at Plémont are so extreme that those of a nervous disposition should turn back and head for somewhere safer, or retreat to a darkened room.
According to the signs – which are so big and so numerous that you couldn’t fail to miss them in a month of Sundays, and which moreover come in six languages – anyone brave or foolhardy, depending on your standpoint, enough to venture on to the beach must beware of a plethora of the bleeding obvious. The long list includes: strong currents (tidal flows not the dried fruit), being cut-off by the rising tide, unstable cliffs (which must not be sat or walked under and most definitely not climbed), submerged rocks and – wait for it – uneven surfaces.
As the sands of Plémont shift with each tide, twice every day, it is the last place on the rock where a spirit level would come in handy for heaven’s sake. And what about the caves, you may ask? Well, don’t even think about venturing inside let alone anywhere near their vicinity.
Admittedly, the above are all potential risks but as Honest Nev Ahier could confirm – the odds of anyone falling foul to them are pretty long.
Perhaps it explains why, on a lovely Sunday September morning between approximately 8.15 am and 9.45 am, the dogs and me had the beach to ourselves.
Notwithstanding running the risks of being flattened by falling rocks, sucked out to sea or tripping over sandbanks, there is an even greater extreme danger: surfers!
Hello? I have always regarded them as easy-going, laid-back dudes who wouldn’t harm a fly but now I can only assume that like Honest Nev’s tarpaulin, they are not what they seem. I don’t think I will ever be able to look a surfer in the eyes again without fearing for my very own ‘elf ‘n’ safety.
Ye gods. It is enough to make a Red Arrow pilot turn on his (or her) heels and head for the safe environments of a sedate café to take afternoon tea before flying home after the International Air Display.
If Plémont beach is so damn dangerous just ban public access completely. Blow up the bridge, mine the approach road, erect an impenetrable wall and shoot any one with an inflatable – which are also on the danger list – who tries to get through.
You set off for a quiet walk on possibly one the best ten beaches in the world at low water to discover that the actual ‘safe’ area to stroll within is a 100-metre circle in the middle of the sands. But only if the surface is as flat as a pancake, isn’t strewn with submerged rocks or inhabited by surfers because apparently, they also pose a danger to public safety.
For the past six days I haven’t been able to stop singing the opening song from Top Gun, Danger Zone by Giorgio Moroder, in particular the last verse and final repetition of the chorus.
‘Out along the edges
Always where I burn to be
The further on the edge
The hotter the intensity
Highway to the danger zone
Gonna take you
Right into the danger zone
Highway to the danger zone’.
Well, maybe not a highway, just the B55, Route de Vinchelez!
If the first of two outings to Plémont this week was fraught with so many ‘extreme’ dangers, I diced with death watching the superb display by the Red Arrows. Low cloud may not be conducive to aerial stunts, but it produced a fantastic display of precision low-level flying that will never be forgotten by those privileged to see it.
Perched on the very edge of the top of Mount Bingham – with just a wire fence between me and a sheer drop to the road below – those daring pilots in their flying machines were a sight to behold.
As the convoy of cars heading east, crept slowly over Mount Bingham there was one final feat of breathtaking aviation mastery to behold. With the smell of aviation fuel and the Red Arrows trademark smoke still strong in the now still air one of nature’s marvels caught my eye.
A lone kestrel swept over the TA Centre to hover, effortlessly in the sky, as if to say: ‘if you think all that was good then look at me folks’.
Unbeknown to me there was one last treat to come. As I drove the trusty Clio up Rue du Tapon on Saturday morning the departing Red Arrows swept eastwards above me in arrow formation to trail white smoke over the open fields of this rural heartland.
Now that’s what I call living in the danger zone.
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