This is 100% Finland and beaches and I guess I shouldn't be surprised it's the Brits as well

[cimorene]

Just saw this retweeted into my timeline by a reporter from the Manchester area (the Llandudno goats guy) and I took at least 5 seconds to realize it was not satire:

Couldn't be a more perfect day to head to the beach... here's some inspo [sic] with the best seaside towns and resorts ranked in the annual Which? survey - and many in the top 20 are not too far from us!

[IMAGE depicting a curve of shoreline bordered in gray rocks. There's no sand. On the other side of the water is a picturesque town in a valley lit up with some rather weak sunbeams. In the foreground two people are walking wearing coats and long sleeves, long trousers, and boots, on a brick walkway on the other side of the rocks. There is no sand and nothing that I, an American, would describe as a "beach". It is somewhat overcast and the light on the people is rather gray.]

[HEADLINE:] Britain's best seaside and beach resorts ranked

I've spent my entire adult life in Turku around 20-30 minutes' walk from the harbor, and now in Pargas on a relatively small island, maybe 5-10 minutes' walk from the shore in most directions, including harbors for boats, multiple beaches with sand, etc. My experience, however, has shown me that it's literally never warm enough for me to get in the ocean water in Finland, even in a bay. I tried a lake at BIL's wedding in central Finland ~15 years ago and it was slightly better, but still too cold: gotta try a smaller lake, I guess.

Wax and her family will swim in the bay of Finland Archipelago Sea (I've been informed the Bay of Finland is just the bit between us and Estonia), directly off the islands of the archipelago, in the middle of summer. (Obviously not right NOW.) I'm just not built for these temperatures.

Comments

[yvannairie]

:DDD haha weak, nature will claim you. But I admit, I also find the water in the gulf absolutely freezing and I grew up swimming primarily in a river that never broke 18C in temperature even in the hottest of summers. I'll still go for a swim specifically to cool myself off on really hot days, but on slightly cooler days that are, like, prime beach bumming season, I almost never go swimming.

There's a constructed pond near where my friend lives in Oulu which is basically my go-to place to go swimming in the summer, it reminds me of the absolutely tiny little lake I grew up next to in Tampere. Like, I used to swim in both Näsi and Pyhä, too, but that lake was the one we would go out of our way to cycle to just to cool off.

[cimorene]

That sounds like a good idea - Wax says she swam in lakes and ponds and rivers growing up - in Pojo, I guess, not here. Pargas is so wee there isn't even a public pool. The water gymnastics classes or whatever they're called have to borrow a school's. I don't think I've heard of any near here though... but maybe if I investigate a bit more.

I grew up about 5 hours' drive from the gulf coast, so we only went there a few times per summer. The beaches right on the Gulf of Mexico have harsher waves and colder water though in general, and my favorite beach was in a little bay much further down the coast. Took a lot longer to get there, on Apalachicola Bay in the Florida panhandle.

The water from the Gulf of Mexico enters on the left there, but the bay itself is about 540 square km so it's much MUCH larger than a typical bay along the coast. As a result of the land fencing it off the water is much warmer and the waves much calmer than in the Gulf of Mexico, but it feels much more ocean-like than a lot of bays (which tend to have harsh rock and seashell bottoms instead of fine sand, and often be shallower close to the shore, at least, in the parks that allow you to swim or wade in them if you want to).

It's actually more like the lake with swimming that I used to go swim at as a child, but nicer - the lake had much smaller waves too. I suppose bigger lakes probably have bigger waves though, and I've never been swimming in a truly giant lake.

[viggorlijah]

The final episode of Heartstopper, a sweet lgbtq Netflix show, has a scene on a British beach. Maggie stopped the show to howl with laughter and disbelief that they thought this was a nice day at a beach. “It’s rocks! They’re lying down on rocks!”

[cimorene]

THey LIE DOWN on the rocks?! HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA

[torachan]

Yeah, that's not what I would call a beach. To me beach definitely doesn't just mean any place where land meets water. It has to have sand.

[cimorene]

There are "beaches" in Finland where not only is there no sand, the rocks are BIG and like not safe to walk on without shoes out to the water... and the water is completely full of reeds taller than a person as far as the eye can see. So you wade into the water on these rocks having to shove your way between... it feels like a young aquatic bamboo forest, AND the water is completely frigid.