Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Ye Ole Swimmin' hole

Can an ocean beach be a 'swimming hole'? I've always thought of semi-secret bends of a river as swimming holes. Anyway...

Just north of the lighthouse in Sokcho are a group of submerged and half-submerged boulders that make an excellent diving platform and provide a substrate for a dynamic ecosystem.

As with any good swimming hole, getting there is a challenge - you have to scramble down the breakwater tetrahedrons to reach the narrow beach.

Last year, the beach wasn't nearly so narrow. Here, I have (crappily) photoshopped in the beach as it appeared in 2007.
I am balancing on the two rocks in an area that was half this depth last year. More than a metre of sand has been swept away.
Mussels of the intertidal zone.
A group of conscript soldiers enjoying some time off.


A soldier took the above picture of me as well as this video of me swimming through an under water tunnel that, last year, was also underground.




While swimming, I found many schools of fish, a crab intermittently seen through the jungle of seaweed and a pair of nudibranches ( I think - they were as big as my head, black and dark brown and had a few snail- or slug-like tentacles). I also found a squirtgun and a pair of goggles.

Oh, last year, I found a pair of goggles with the adhesive covers still on the lenses - I guess someone bought them, tried them and could hardly see, didn't realize that the tape should be removed, and threw them away. This story has nothing to do with the swimming hole, I just think it's funny.

2 comments:

Marcus Peddle said...

Impressive swim under the rocks. I'd be lucky to just doggy-paddle over them.

PAKA said...

"whoooaaaa." koreans can be so funny and easily impressed. anyway, looks like fun. i've been having anmok beach to myself these last few days (a bit lonely. no bikinis to look at);p

i think i'm going to try gyeongpo beach today.