The Staircase to the Moon at Hearson Cove

We visited Hearson Cove in the morning, then returned after sunset for a very different version of the same beach.

By then the tide had retreated so far that we could walk a long way out across the exposed flats. Sea snails and small crabs were scattered around us, busy with their own low-tide arrangements. It was hard to connect all that open ground with the water we had seen earlier.

Then the full moon rose, its reflection breaking across the mudflats into the bright steps of the Staircase to the Moon. The effect depends on that combination of a rising moon and exposed tidal flats, and it was well worth coming back for.

The photographs give a few versions of it: the moon itself, the strip of light across the flats, and the quieter colours left over from sunset. The tide had rearranged the entire foreground between visits.