Britain's secret beaches: The beautiful shores hidden around our country

Losgainter beach in the Outer Hebrides was once mistakenly used in a Thai tourism brochure [BNPS]

Travel writer Daniel Start has compiled a list of the 400 best secret beaches in the country after ten years of research.

And the results, published in his book Hidden Beaches, show the beautiful bays and coves hidden right under our noses.

Some of the beaches are just off the tourist trail while others, such as Sandy Bay near Tenby, Wales, can only be accessed by water.

Losgainter, on the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides, is so idyllic that Thai tourism officials once mistakenly used a picture of the beach in one of their holiday brochures.

Crackington Haven in Cornwall [BNPS]

Pobbles in South Wales [BNPS]

Putting this book together has made me realise paradise is here at home

Daniel Start

Keynance Cove on the Lizard, Cornwall, can only be accessed at low tide but those who make the effort are rewarded with a scene on a par with the Caribbean.

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Mexico's Pacific Coast: hidden beaches and resort towns

Puerto Vallarta: the beaches

Even if youre staying a couple of weeks, theres a beach for every day and every mood in and around Puerto Vallarta. Downtown at the Playa de los Muertos (Beach of the Dead), and in the hotel zones to the north, youll find plenty of people and plenty going on. Elsewhere around the Baha de Banderas, the bay at whose centre Puerto Vallarta sits, alternatives abound. They include Mismaloya, where Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor carried on the scandalous romance credited with first putting Puerto Vallarta on the map, and many more white-sand getaways that can be accessed only by boat or an arduous jungle hike, such as the old hippy hangout of Yelapa, hemmed in by tropical hills and coconut palms.

Better still, 30 minutes offshore lie the Marieta Islands, at the heart of a huge marine national park characterised by extraordinary natural rock arches and tunnels. If you want to escape the crowds, there are dozens of tiny hidden beaches and lonely swimming and snorkelling spots here.

Buceras and Punta Mita, with their very different characters, mark the northern extent of the Baha de Banderas. At laid-back, shabby Buceras, seafront restaurants offer tremendous views back over Puerto Vallarta, and theres entertaining shopping at a series of flea-market style stalls. Punta Mita is altogether glossier, with a magnificent coral-sand beach thats been exploited by ritzy resort hotels. Languorous Sayulita, farther north, is somewhere between the two, attracting a gringo surfer crowd to an enchanting, jungle-fringed beach. Its a particularly good place to learn to surf.

The Costalegre stretches south of Puerto Vallarta for more than 125 miles, including some of the wildest, most undeveloped stretches of Mexicos Pacific coast. The jungle-smothered mountains, lonely beaches and isolated villages seem incredibly tempting, but before attempting the journey youd be well advised to seek some local advice: many of the choicest spots have been closed off thanks to disputes over land ownership.

Barra de Navidad is an accessible, and almost entirely Mexican, resort

At the southern end of the coast, the twin resort towns of Barra de Navidad and Melaque definitely are accessible. A striking contrast to Puerto Vallarta, theyre almost entirely Mexican resorts, little commercialised but crowded at weekends with families and revellers from Guadalajara, Mexicos second city. Barra and Melaque are joined by a five-mile arc of golden sand, the focus and highlight of a visit to either.

Highlights elsewhere on the Costalegre include the Costa Careyes (Turtle Coast), a series of fine beaches ringed by glamorous villas, where endangered Olive Ridley turtles lay their eggs. Theres a conservation programme you can visit, and though some of the beaches are gated, the guards will let you through to visit the beach. Nearby Baha Chamela offers another sweeping arc of superb beaches, only now starting to be developed theres fabulous snorkelling and diving around a series of small offshore islands.

Getting there Direct Dreamliner flights with Thomson (thomson.co.uk) to Puerto Vallarta start from Manchester on May 1 and from London Gatwick on May 3. Prices range from less than 350 return, in early May, to more than 1,000 on peak dates in August, with discounted package holidays in May from about 610. One-stop flights involve changing planes, either in Mexico City (direct flights with British Airways) or in the United States. Less mainstream packages are offered by specialists such as Audley Travel (01993 838 638; audleytravel.com) or Cathy Matos Mexican Tours (020 8492 0000; mextours.co.uk).

Where to stay

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New regulations see 15 Irish beaches at risk of closure orders

01/05/2014 - 13:27:23Back to Ireland Home

Fifteen popular beaches and bathing spots are at risk of being shut for swimmers for an entire summer because of pollution fears.

Despite only four bathing areas failing to meet the minimum standards last year, the environmental watchdog has warned that figure could more than treble under European toughened regulations.

Out of 135 bathing spots checked in 2013, only Clifden in Galway, Lilliput on Lough Ennell in Co Westmeath, Dugort on Achill and Ballyloughane in Galway city failed to hit the mark.

But the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has named 15 swimming spots and beaches where notices might have to be posted warning of EU closure orders.

They include the Front Strand and Claycastle in Youghal, and Fountainstown in Co Cork; in Dublin, Sandymount Strand, Balbriggan Front Strand, Loughshinny, and the South Beach in Rush; in Galway, Ballyloughane and Grattan Road beaches and Clifden, Tra na bhForbacha, and Tra na mBan, An Spideal; Ardmore beach in Waterford; Lilliput in Westmeath; and Duncannon in Wexford.

But Peter Webster, EPA senior scientific officer, said beaches and popular bathing spots will not be policed to stop swimmers.

The waters will have signage telling the public that the water classification was poor and advising against bathing, he said.

But you cant stop people swimming, so people will be advised to check with the current status.

The tougher EU standards will use an average of water quality over the previous four years to determine if signs must be erected for the June-September season saying water may not be safe.

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Seaweed assaults Galveston beaches

GALVESTON - A cold front gave Galveston Island temporary respite Wednesday from a relentless three-day onslaught of seaweed that piled up on beaches at a rate not seen in years, leaving mounds of Sargassum several feet high in places.

"These landings are pretty big," said Kelly de Schaun, Galveston Park Board executive director. "This is probably the worst case of seaweed we've seen in at least the last five years."

The cold front pushed the seaweed back out to sea, but it is expected to return with a vengeance in a couple of days, said Robert Webster, marine science research assistant at Texas A&M University at Galveston. Webster said the Sargassum is continuing to grow in nutrient-rich waters offshore and will resume its march to shore when the cold front passes. He predicted another week to 10 days of Sargassum.

The unusually large mass of seaweed accumulation forced the Park Board to temporarily abandon its policy of leaving seaweed where it washes ashore to trap sand and help fight wave erosion that shrinks beaches.

All available Park Board employees have been pressed into service, some recalled from vacation, to keep the seaweed from interfering with tourism, the island's lifeblood, de Schaun said. Employees and heavy equipment are at work every morning before dawn to make sure that arriving tourists are not blocked from the surf by a wall of seaweed.

The onslaught of seaweed forced the Park Board to use front-end loaders even though their use had been halted earlier because they scooped up too much precious beach sand. Workers are also using surf rakes, which rake the seaweed onto a conveyor belt without scooping up sand. The massive accumulations are being moved to growing piles of seaweed at the back of the beaches.

"Sunday was the worst," said Sharon Mamich, 43, of Houston, who was taking advantage of the seaweed reprieve Wednesday and relaxing on East Beach. "I was on the seawall and it stunk." She said the smell was especially repugnant to a friend and her 6-year-old daughter. "It just grossed them out."

Holli Vivrine, 25, of Beaumont also found the seaweed disagreeable, as she sat with friends in front of the seawall near the Galveston Pleasure Pier. "It just smells and it's itchy if you walk on it," Vivrine said.

The seaweed is arriving on Galveston beaches after drifting for thousands of miles from the Sargasso Sea, the only sea on the planet without land borders. The Sargasso Sea is at the intersection of four ocean currents known as the Northern Atlantic Subtropical Gyre. The Gulf Stream forms the western boundary of the Sargasso Sea, the North Atlantic Current the northern, the Canary Current the eastern, and the North Atlantic Equatorial Current the southern.

Sargassum seaweed is an algae that grows in the Sargasso Sea and eventually drifts into the Gulf of Mexico, growing as it makes its journey. The currents return much of the seaweed to the Sargasso Sea, but some drifts into the nutrient-filled waters off the Texas Coast where it thrives.

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Seaweed assaults Galveston beaches