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Whitby

July 19th, 2020

Whitby Harbour and St Mary's Church
Whitby Harbour and St Mary's Church (25mm f/8 1/400s ISO200)

Whitby is a town on the North Yorkshire coast, perhaps most famous for its association with Bram Stoker's Dracula, though it also has ties to the explorer Captain Cook as the place he learned to sail. Today it is a popular tourist destination and a fishing port.

This first image is a shot across the harbour from the more touristy side. I believe I was stood right outside The Dracula Experience. At the top of the hill is St Mary's Church, a Grade I listed 12th Century building close to the well-known ruins of Whitby Abbey.

The buildings further down along the edge of the harbour are the back of a busy, narrow shopping street leading to the 199 steps (counts vary) up to the abbey. The pier in the foreground is the RNLI lifeboat station.

Harbour Wall, Whitby
Harbour Wall, Whitby (49mm f/13 1/250s ISO200)

This second image shows the northern pier extension at the entrance to the harbour, which protects ships from rough seas as they come into the harbour at the mouth of the River Esk. Visitors looking to get away from the more crowded areas of the town can stroll down to the end of the wall which is usually fairly quiet, though not advisable in bad weather.

Although quite a few people are walking further down the end of the pier, I wanted the focus of this picture to be the couple on the open section and the swirling texture of the sky at the top contrasted against the calm water at the bottom.

Beach at High Tide, Whitby
Beach at High Tide, Whitby (14mm f/4 1/1000s ISO200)

The final photo shows Whitby Sands, the beach to the north end of the town. While it's quite a large beach when the tide goes out, at high tide, the sea comes right in and cuts off this little section by the harbour from the rest of the beach, forcing everyone into this tiny cramped area.