March 7-6, 2022

When surfing at Fistral Beach or Watergate Bay around Newquay, Cornwall, it is not uncommon for a large grey head to rise out of the water near you and something that looks much like a man in a hooded wetsuit will stare at you, looking you straight in the eyes from only a few yards away. This is quite startling at first as you try to quickly ascertain whether or not this floating head might actually be a swimmer or something dangerous. However, after the first second, you can easily make out the details of a rare grey seal. They are significant in size with the bulls ranging from 6-7ft in length and commonly weighing in at 500-600 pounds. On the IUCN Red List for endangered species, grey seals are protected by the Habitats Directive in the EU and the Conservation of Seals Act in the UK. These seals have their colonies along the coast and we found out they like to frequent the area near Pentire Point and Polly Joke beach.

So, we took a sunset hike up to Pentire Point to look for seals amongst the rocky shoreline.

There is paid parking near Crantock beach and the dirt road quickly narrows into a footpath that winds between thick hedgerows that are well overhead and separate farm fields.

As you get closer to the shore there is a fantastic view of Crantock Beach which has a wide stretch of sand at low tide. When we went there was a group of about 5-7 surfers in the middle to the north side of the beach.

After about 20-25 minutes, we started spotting grey seals popping up near the rocks but they would stay about 5-10 feet offshore.

We were hoping to see them come ashore and haul themselves up on the rocks but the tide was low and only just beginning to rise. I wonder if they wait until high tide so they can easily float up onto the rocks and into the little inlets.

We did not see any seals out of the water but the hike itself was gorgeous with wonderful views from the headland.

There was also a cavern that cut through the hillside and opened up on the other side with a phenomenal view of the sunset. It looked as though the earth had cracked and split open.

If you keep hiking past the cave and around the headland, you come to another, very unique beach called Polly Joke. The beach is shaped almost like a star where one end opens up into the ocean and steep rocky crevasses spread in multiple directions.

On the southern side of the cliffs overlooking the beach there was a small group of sheep grazing. We picked up Sydney so she would not disturb them but one of them had a little lamb that was suckling it’s mother and it was super adorable.

I highly recommend this short hike as it was extremely easy but still had gorgeous views and interesting terrain/wildlife.