Another thing I can’t stop being fascinated by: Tides.
Sometimes you look towards Hastings Pier, and there is water all the way up to the sea wall. Those are the times I am too stunned to take pictures, unfortunately.
Other times, the sea retreats:
Further and further.
And then at some point I can’t zoom out enough to capture the building on the pier at the same time as the water’s edge…
It’s easy to forget the enormous size and power associated with waves in the ocean. Yes, we see pictures of surfers on Hawaii or of ships in waves occasionally, but usually we don’t really think about how large waves out in the ocean actually are. Which makes it easy to underestimate the force that the ocean holds within, not only on days when natural disasters like storm surges or tsunamis occur, but on a daily basis, just in the swell of distant storms. So sometimes it is quite healthy to look at waves on the beach and compare them to other buildings.
For example here, waves and Hastings Pier:
Those aren’t even particularly large waves, yet we see that their wavelength, peak to peak, is easily a lot more than 20m. This is what coastal structures deal with on a daily basis!