Beaches
Porthcawl has seven beaches.
Newton Beach to the east of Porthcawl is a long sandy and rocky beach, backed by the Newton Burrows and Merthyr Mawr sand dunes, a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest, and ending at the mouth of the River Ogmore at Ogmore-by-Sea. Newton Beach and the sand dunes are popular with walkers and horse riders. The beach is popular with windsurfers, jet skiers and power boat users.
Trecco Bay is a large, sandy and rocky Blue Flag beach. Trecco Bay holiday park is situated alongside the beach.
Sandy Bay, with the area in front of the fairground known as Coney Beach, is a large sheltered and sandy beach. The beach has lifeguard cover from May to September and the water quality is rated as excellent. Sandy Bay is popular with families who can enjoy donkey and pony rides on the beach, alongside other facilities such as trampolines and bouncy castles and the adjacent Coney Beach Fun Fair. Sandy Bay is also popular with surfers. Sandy Bay hosts the ever popular Christmas morning swim where hundreds of swimmers, many in fancy dress, have braved the waters on Christmas Day since 1965, drawing in thousands of spectators and raising thousands of pounds for local charities.
Seafront Beach, also known as Town Beach, is a rocky beach in the centre of Porthcawl which was partly tarmaced over in the 1980s to repair sea defences. Swimming is prohibited at the beach and conditions are only suitable for experienced surfers due to the tides and sharp rocks.
Rest Bay is a sandy Blue Flag beach situated in the west of Porthcawl. It is a very popular for water sports, especially surfing. A 'surf cam' shows live conditions from Rest Bay 24-hours-a-day. A lifeguard station overlooks the beach which is patrolled by lifeguards during the summer months the beach .
Pink Bay is a quiet beach, 15 minutes walk from Rest Bay that has a steep pebble bank down onto a flat beach edged by a rocky shoreline. These rocks have a unique pink marbling effect – hence the name Pink Bay.
Sker Beach is the most westerly beach in Porthcawl and is accessible only by walking from Rest Bay or Kenfig National Nature Reserve. Its remote location makes it one of the quieter beaches in Porthcawl. A plaque, in memory of the 47 lives lost on the S.S.Santampa, capsized and wrecked in heavy seas, and the Mumbles RNLI life boat which attempted rescue on April 23, 1947, is visible at low tide. At very low tides wreckage is still being found.
Five rocky points line the Porthcawl shore: From east to west these are Newton Point, Rhych Point, Porthcawl Point, Hutchwns Point and Sker Point.
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Famous quotes containing the word beaches:
“They commonly celebrate those beaches only which have a hotel on them, not those which have a humane house alone. But I wished to see that seashore where man’s works are wrecks; to put up at the true Atlantic House, where the ocean is land-lord as well as sea-lord, and comes ashore without a wharf for the landing; where the crumbling land is the only invalid, or at best is but dry land, and that is all you can say of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)