The rain has just stopped falling when Nigel George walks down to the beach in Sandown Bay on the Isle of Wight. He crosses the coastal road and descends a concrete stairway, a sheen of sand covering its lowest steps. The place is quiet, with only a few walkers animating the shoreline.
He’s here to inspect a wooden groyne – a kind of jetty, designed to prevent erosion – which stretches out into the sea and towards France. The groyne has been fitted with a series of small, basin-like, rough concrete, structures. George peers inside one: a congregation of limpets, barnacles, seaweed, and a single sea snail peer back at him.
