The Undercliff Walk took us all the way to the eastern arm of Brighton Marina. The Marina is huge. Occupying almost half a square kilometre and boasting 1,600 berths as well as an entire village, it is the largest marina complex in Europe. As we approached the eastern arm we looked at it and enjoyed its strange, buttressed, shape. Fishermen tried their luck from the lower, outer, walkway.
We walked up and started our way along it. The eastern arm is approximately three quarters of a mile long. We looked back at the Undercliff Walk at it stretched away behind us. Roedean School sat on top of the cliffs looking out to sea. What an amazing location for a school!
We turned around and continued walking along the marina arm, but all of a sudden something caught my attention. “Quick!” I hissed at the others with a touch of hysterical incredulity in my voice. “Come here – someone’s just caught a fish!”.
The man in question overheard me and looked up with a confused smile, frowning in a bemused manner. I could tell he was thinking, “Of course I just caught a fish! I’m fishing!”
“It’s a momentous occasion for us,” I explained. “We’ve walked 400 miles around the entire coast from Southend. We’ve seen thousands of people fishing, but we’ve never seen anyone actually catch a fish. I was beginning to think it was all a myth or some great conspiracy”. He laughed and looked at me as if I had received the benefit of too much sun today.
If you take a moment to think about the maths, you will realise how significant an event this was. We had walked over 400 miles before seeing anyone catch a fish off the coast of Britain. Based on other things we had seen on our walks, until this point we were statistically more likely to see a formation of Apache attack helicopters flying directly over us; a Spitfire; a golden eagle; and a naked stranger (links are attached to each of these, save for the last. I thought taking a picture of a naked stranger was not such a good idea).
So you see, seeing a man catch a fish after 400 miles of coastal walking is something to be celebrated. The lucky fish was thrown back to the sea.
I was happy that this imbalance had been addressed. The statistical equilibrium was on a level again. Things were as they should be. Unfortunately, about five minutes later as a Spitfire raced by about 200 feet away from us. There you have it. If you walk the coast of Britain you are more likely to see a Spitfire than you are a fish being caught. Who would have thought?
Points on this part of the walk (copy and paste the co-ordinates into Google Earth):
- Eastern Arm of Brighton Marina: N 50° 48.522 W 000° 06.020
- Roedean School: N 50° 48.730 W 000° 05.095
Walk #51 Statistics (of which this post forms the third part):
- Date of Walk: 12 May 2013
- Walk #51 total distance covered: 8.04 miles
- Coast of Britain Walk Total Distance Covered: 419.49 miles
- CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO INTERACTIVE MAP!!!
The Coastal Path 
In general i am with you on the number of fish caught per 100 miles covered, the two exceptions i remember was on the Devon coast (man had 4 mackerel on one line of feathers), and opposite Liverpool those men had it sussed hauling in flat fish and cod.
Cheers J.P.
Hi John – funnily enough, one walk later we were watching a group of people fishing from a pier in Shoreham. A shoal of mackrel swam through and all my statistics were blown out of the window at that point! One guy landed five fish on five hooks at once. He threw the smallest back for good luck and kept the others for dinner. Nic
…and the guy couldn’t pose with the fish before he threw it back so you could have a picture??? 😦