This is just a few miles down the coast from St Andrews, north of Anstruther. The trip is in one of Doug Cooper’s books. It starts with sunshine, and a drive through rich farmland with huge fields of poppies. Launching from Kingsbarns Beach car park on the helpful south stream, we travel along the coast which shows barely a break in the rocky skerries, round Fife Ness, the east-most point in Fife, marked by the disused coastguard station. The scenery changes dramatically as we pass the corner. The formidable swell dies down and the views reveal spectacular sights of North Berwick Law, the Bass Rock from “the wrong side”, and Dunbar in the far distance, whilst the Isle of May feels close enough to touch. The vista is all laid out on a board in Crail, one of the prettiest villages and certainly the most photographed/painted harbour in Scotland. Coffee, ice cream and lobster abound.
We return on the slack tide and land with great caution, dodging the breakers driving towards the skerries. Cambo Sands (aka Kingsbarns Beach) is a surf beach of some repute and the forecast for today was good. As it turns out, the surf is not overly big, but vicious – it consists mostly of short period wind waves, and dumps a fair bit – that’s between the shore breaks. Not much surf then, but altogether a completely glorious outing.