Madhouse Diaries : Discovering a WWII shipwreck at the beach

We've had the Norwegian teacher exchange group over this week and, as they looked after us so well when we were in Stavanger, taking us up a mountain called Dalsnuten, visiting a museum about traditional Norwegian costumes, taking in the beautiful scenery at The Old Vicarage (Hå Gamle Prestegard) and exploring the World War II Bunkers in Vedafjellet, we wanted to show them the sights of Dunkirk too. The beach and the dunes were the obvious place to start, so we went for a long walk followed by a picnic.

It was a Sunday morning so the far end of the beach was pretty much deserted, except for a few horseriders in the surf. It still seems strange to me to see horses in the sea, but I suppose it's because I'm used to shingle beaches in Britain which are pretty unstable underfoot.

Add a few palm trees and you could be in the Seychelles ! We're in the middle of a heatwave so we've certainly got the sweltering temperatures.

 We all kicked off our socks and shoes and splashed through the wet sand and shallow water at the water's edge. 

We've visited this beach many times before - it's where the World War II bunkers are and we've been geocaching around here too - but never at low tide, so I was delighted to see that one of the shipwrecks was visible.

I knew they were there - there are about three or four, to my knowledge - because they are marked out with yellow buoys bobbing in the sea, so that the kite surfers and jet-skiers stay away from them, but I've never had a chance to see them. I've always wanted to though, so this is something to tick off my "local things to do" bucket list !

From a distance, the wreck looks like a whale carcass rising up out of the sand.

This was apparently a cargo boat, not one of the Little Ships that came back and forth across the Channel - you can still see the engine - but it was still involved in rescuing troops during Operation Dynamo and sadly didn't survive.

Parts of it are surprisingly intact, given that it has been under the sea for over 70 years.

It's quite creepy, when you think about the history behind it. We're all looking forward to Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk film being released this summer, having seen the town transformed into how it looked during wartime, so I'm sure that will make it even more poignant.

 It was strange to think that the tide would soon be hiding it away again. 

 In twenty years of living here, it's the first time I've managed to see it and some of the members of the group didn't even know the shipwrecks were there !