Warm, sunny autumn day, launch into the Rother at Rye at high water avoiding the mud, out through the river mouth and along a coast featureless from the water until the cliffs rose up before Hastings, luxury houses and secluded beaches. We stopped at Fairlight Cove, a cottage teetering on the brink of the soft rock above us and snacked on coffee and sandwiches amongst elegantly patterned boulders, headed back out through minimal swell and came into Hastings just as dusk was falling, only the old town visible from the water, looking no doubt just as it had 100 years ago, just in time for a sprint through the newer part of town to the station, flopping dripping and gasping into the only train for an hour, just in time to get back and retrieve cars at the other end.
Hastings pier not quite smouldering any more, deposits of charcoal on the sand.
I went back another day to try to find the beach from the land and see the context of the cliff top buildings but was unable to find it.
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