Sunday May 10 2026  12.45 pm

A sunny day with strengthening north-easterly wind. This is Sidmouth’s classic brown sea with very sharp boundary between the sandy water and the blue open sea. I’ve not come across any explanation for the sharpness of the dividing line and indeed,  the source of the sandy water isn’t obvious either.  It could be cliff-fall sand swept westward; sand brought down by the river Sid or (more likely) the action of wave-generated turbulence lifting sand off the sea bed. The sharp boundary could be due to a frontogenesis process of the kind that leads to fronts in the atmosphere at the boundary of air masses. Something to look into !