C is for CLIFFS and CAVES

 

Cliffs and Caves where else but Flamborough, East Yorkshire, UK

There is my old house on the extreme right.  Not there any more. The second tower is the old lighthouse built in the 1600's.  They had to light a bonfire on the top if there was any one in distress.

Below left is  the rescue of three young girls who got cut off by the tide hoping to be able to climb around the cliffs to the next bay.  Happens all the time! What they didn't know was that there are two large caves they have to get past, and one of the girls couldn't swim.  We were on a 'Round the Caves' coble and our fishermen were able to rescue them. They were lucky because this was the last trip for the night.  It would have been mighty cold on those ledges.

 

The very high cliffs are just north of Flamborough, rising to 400 feet -- a sheer drop.  It is a wild bird preserve and part of the Heritage Coast line.  Razorbills, kittiwakes, guillimots, petrels, fulmars and more  are all to be found here nesting on the ledges.  Puffins are also there, nesting on the ledges instead of burrowing into the cliffs as they do elsewhere.  As children we roamed these cliffs without a care in the world.  The fishermen used to go over the cliffs on ropes and collect seabirds eggs to eat and also to sell in nearby Bridlington.  I have eaten many seabirds eggs.  They're good!  This practice was outlawed in 1954.  Today, the cliffs and nesting areas are well protected by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.  But you can still visit them .  Trails have been made along the cliff edge.

 Numerous caves are found all around the headland.  Some very large -- large enough to take a boat in at high tide.  They all have names.  What a wonderful childhood it was to have free access to these cliffs, caves and bays.

Thornwick Bay looking north to the Bempton cliffs.  Some of these photos are old, so please excuse their quality.

This is the inside of Robin Lyth's Cave, which is found at North Landing and is the largest cave of all.  It is perfectly safe to enter at low tide.  It is about 60 feet high and perhaps 150 feet from the entrance to the exit, where the sea is always splashing close in.  It is named after a legendary smuggler Robin Lyth and is the name I used as the title of my book "The Tale of Robin Lyth".  Shameless plug here! My book is an updated version of "Mary Anerley".by R. D. Blackmore  (of "Lorna Doone" fame.   A good number of years ago, so I'm told, the villagers used to hold village meetings in this cave.  I'm not sure that that isn't a bit of enhanced memory from the fishermen, but it could be true.

WEDNESDAY'S WORDS

"Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord, "though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow." Isaiah 2:18

Here is a picture of a loving God, who so desires to stop the punishment of his children for their sins (and believe me their sins were every bit as horrible as what we read of today), that He puts aside His holiness that makes sin so repugnant to Him,  and asks in all reasonableness that He and we the sinners should sit down together and look at this problem, just as a father would with his children.  He is holy; we are not.  How then can the two come together?  In these words is the foreshadowing of Jesus Christ who brought the two aspects together by bearing the punishment for our sins and offering forgiveness.  We can be "as white as snow" and may now come boldly before the Father without a shred of guiltiness because it has all been taken away.  THAT is salvation.