Ice sculptures, rescues and chaos on bank holiday beaches

With temperatures soaring over the weekend to what have been reported as the hottest of the year, the UK’s beaches were unsurprisingly crowded with sun-starved people flocking to the coast.

But not everyone was having fun in the sun.

The RNLI and coastguards in Wales reported  a number of rescues over the weekend, one involving an eight-year-old girl who drifted out to sea on an inflatable in Kinmel Bay, Conway county, according to BBC News.

Crews at Rhos Point responded to a call after a man who had fallen from a water scooter and could not get back onto it. Llandudno coastguard team and inshore lifeboat team went to help the man out of the water, while on Anglesey the Treaddur Bay Lifeboat and Holyhead Coastguard teams helped two kayakers, one of whom was in the water and unable to get back in.

HM Coastguard said it also had to deal with a “myriad” of other things including people getting cut off by the tide.

However, people weren’t the only ones lining the beaches. On New Brighton beach in Wirral, Merseyside, ice sculptures of children were created to highlight climate change.

The Independent reports that 26 sculptures, which will be washed away by the sea, were created along with a 120m sand drawing by artists from Sand In Your Eye.

As part of the installation, designed to highlight the importance of the global climate conference Cop26, 26 children and their families stood alongside the ice sculptures holding plaques with the names of global leaders.

Finally, a bank holiday wouldn’t be complete without at least one person not engaging their brain and causing chaos. This time it was the turn of a man from the Midlands whose family car was washed into the sea near St Agnes after he became stuck on a steep slipway while attempting a three-point turn.

The 26-year-old said the incident happened over night when he and his friend became lost, according to The Guardian.

“The back tyres fell over the edge of the slipway,” he said. “I tried calling 999 but we had no signal so we slept in the car for four or five hours with the wheels over the edge. Then my friend said: ‘I’ve got a bad feeling, let’s get out of this car.’ We got out, went for a walk up the hill to get signal and by the time we got back the car was swimming.”

Salvage experts recovered the vehicle, worth more than £25,000.