Crosby Marina

Protected from the sea and the iron hordes of Gormley’s Another Place by a wall of sand dunes, Crosby Marina is a park interspersed with lakes of varying purposes. There’s the one for watersports, one for the waterfowl and one for the waterboarding. I may have made that last one up.
The children’s playground here is a great place to try out the zip line. As confused children tug on their parents’ coats and ask what that man is doing you’ll be zooming along like Tarzan of the SAS. It’s almost worth the concerned looks from passers-​by.
The rest of the park can be an oddly deserted place to shuffle round but in that way where you think anything could suddenly occur. I think it’s because of the way you can hear the sea but not see it. You half expect all the seagulls to fly in one direction without warning as the shadow of a mega-​tsunami breaks the horizon. It could happen.

Parts of this area are beautiful, others are a little run down. The marina itself has undergone recent transformation with the new development improving leisure and water sport facilities and, hopefully, attracting more people to the area, which has always been less popular than the Southern Crosby end.
The new development is quite attractive, and while it is contemporary and distinctive, it is less «out there» than some of the other more peculiar proposed structures!
It did not however look particularly welcoming when I went down last, I actually thought the place was still closed until I discerned the faint shape of customers inside. I know quite a few people who were unaware the Marina had reopened, perhaps when word spreads it will become busier and look a little more alive.