View allAll Photos Tagged fifecoastalpath
According to our neighbours, Pan Ha' hasn't had many deep snowfalls in the forty years that they have lived here. However, in the last two weeks we have had snow lying and persisting three times, which must be some kind of record?
The name Pan Ha' comes from the old salt pans (there were eight of them) that were on the beach during the 1700's-1800's.The word Ha' is shortened from haugh, which was a term for an an area of flat ground (Pan Haugh it would have been originally)! The almost derelict houses were renovated and re-opened in 1969, by the National Trust for Scotland and sold as private houses. They are lived-in and not some sort of museum. I have annotated some of the houses with their names and dates of building when known.
Female large red damselfly tucking into an early lunch at Bankhead Moss nature reserve (Peat Inn, Fife)
Used a 10 stop ND filter, bumped up ISO and shutter was a lot quicker. Tide going out. Got feet wet. Loved the sound of the pebbles crashing against eachother as the tide went back and forth.
Another view of the magical light and beautiful clouds that we had over the Firth of Forth over a week ago.
Lovely East Neuk village Crail with it's magnificent historic harbour.
Check it out in the lightbox!
Today we had an 8 year old girl and a 13 year old girl stranded on Partan Craig Rocks surrounded by waves. Our neighbour spotted their predicament and we took over as he had to leave for an important business meeting. Mags phoned 999 and I went down to the water's edge to keep the girls calm. An attempt to wade in got to about 6 inchesof water before I slipped on sea-weedy boulders and gave up. The police and ambulance were there within minutes and the lifeboatmen on a fast RIB from Kinghorn RNLI station soon arrived. After a few abortive attempts to reach the wave-lashed rocks, a lifeboat-woman jumped out of the boat to join them. They then got the girls off their precarious perch and whisked them off to land at Dysart Harbour. Those guys are real heroes as they are constantly rescuing folks in trouble on the Fife and Lothian coasts and I take my hat off to them. This really was fast response rescue.
For a couple of days we had this strange dark boat anchored just off Kirkcaldy. It didn't seem to have any name on either the bow or stern and there was no company logo either. Very James Bond villain that was! Then a small helicopter arrived and landed on and took off from a small helideck on the bow, many many times over the space of a couple of days. It then came in and practised landed suspended loads on the flat rear section of the boat. After making enquiries I found out it was the MV Pharos which until a couple of years ago was a lighthouse tender boat servicing Britains's lighthouses. It is now a UK Fisheries patrol and logistics boat. I guess they were training up a new helicopter pilot. I loved the light from the setting sun in this shot plus the detail of the Pentland Hills (East Lothian) in the background. I wish all my Flickr friends a nice Sunday and if you are disappearing away from Flickr for a while, I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year..
Longhorn Beach and Harbour, with Blackness Bay and the Firth of Forth beyond.
August 2005
Rollei 35 camera
Fujichrome 100 film.
Recently we have had the Swiss-owned, MV Solitaire (the worlds largest pipe-laying barge) and its sister ship the MV Audacia, coming and going and off anchor off Dysart. This morning the giant pipe-laying barges had moored side-by side and were surrounded by three supply boats, including the Norwegian ships the MV Vestland Mistral and the MV Troms. There were also two small tugboats on the horizon heading in the Bass Rock direction.
The previous shot was taken in 2014 and this one was taken two years earlier, before all the ugly brickwork was added. The great arch, or window opening, on top of the old cellars, is the most distinctive feature of Newark's ruins.
Yesterday they were dredging Dysart Harbour at extreme low tide. This involved driving a mechanical digger from the beach right into the main harbour basin (see my other shot for the digging operations). They then scooped up harbour mud and filled lorries which seemed to be driving out to the open sea, before turning right at the harbour entrance and heading up the beach beyond the right-hand harbour pier. This shot shows a lorry-load slopping with mud, just about to leave the harbour.
This was taken on the Fife Coastal Path just west of Crail on 8th August. It's the first ever sighting in Fife, and at the time was the furthest north confirmed sighting of a Banded Demoiselle in the UK (there was a possible sighting of one near Aberdeen in 2019).
Yesterday was a quiet day with a little bit of painting up flower-tubs and a lot of reading and enjoying the sun. Then one of the local yachts starting cruising up and down so I shot out of the house to capture it. A few male Eider Ducks (Somateria mollissima) and a Shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis) sportingly climbed on to the rocks and the waves obligingly splashed and I got a shot that pleased me. Have a nice day. We are off to meet friends in the blazing sunshine to watch their car attempt to win the British Stock Car Championships (they are leading). Another chance to try photographing a different sport!
Another archive shot. I feel much better now and yesterday we drove through to the Braehead Centre, Glasgow. Partly to check out the shopping mall (didn't buy anything) but mainly to watch the ice hockey at Braehead Ice Arena. Lowly Fife Flyers deservedly won 4-3 against high-flying Braehead Clan. Watch out next year Elite Ice Hockey League teams, as Britains oldest surviving ice hockey team (established 1938) will no longer be the newbies in the Professional league. COYF!
St Serf’s Tower is located in Dysart (Kirkcaldy), Fife. The building was the tower of St Serf's Church and is one of Scotland’s few surviving church towers with a gun platform. Dedicated in 1245 by Bishop de Bernham, it had been a place of worship far earlier than that. The church originally had a nave and chancel complete with aisles, a south porch and a fortified tower 80 ft / 22 m high to the parapet. It was built from ashlar sandstone (similar to the nearby Royal castle, Ravenscraig) and is thought to be mainly, if not entirely 16th century in age.
The northern aisle has been removed and except for the tower and the porch which are complete, there are only ruins of the rest of the church. Two arches on the northern side and one on the south survive. By 1800 the church had fallen into disrepair and with repair proving too costly (it also reputedly had a low roof which proved unpopular) it was abandoned in favour of a new church (also called St Serf’s). The main building of the church was destroyed in 1802 when a new road (which is still-cobbled) was built down to the harbour, leaving the tower as the only remains of the church. With 103 steps to the top, St Serf’s provides panoramic views all the way across to the Lothians, Kirkcaldy and the East Neuk of Fife and was used as a lookout during the First and Second Wars. The tower is open to the public only on Scotland’s Doors Open Day in late September each year (weather permitting)!
More information on the history of Dysart can be found in the new Dysart Trust website www.dysart-trust.org.uk This outline website will be populated with information and photos in the coming months.
Made Explore #434 on 15 April 2009.
The Isle of May in the Firth of Forth in Scotland, seen from the north, near Crail. The isle is small, 1,5 km long, and now uninhabited. It did host one of Scotland's oldest churches, as well as a monestary, which was plundered by Viking raiders in 875 AD. There is a disused lighthouse on the island, and it can be reached by ferry from Anstruther and Crail, which many birdwatchers take advantage of. The Isle is closed off for a big part of the year, when it is a sanctuary for seals giving birth to their pups
One of three photos from stormy Dysart. Today we had a high tide combined with an Easterly gale , so conditions were the worst since part of East Pier at Dysart Harbour was demolished by a storm in 1969. Tomorrow the tide is supposed to be a little higher! Water was coming over the seawall especially at the lower Seabeams area and they were sitting in a pool of water by the time the tide started to go out again. I hope that tomorrow's shots doesn't show our houses floating out to sea?
Please excuse the quality of my photos, because it was tough keeping the camera and lens dry and I was being buffetted by some nasty winds!