Getting into hot water..

... on the beach that is.. this is Mike standing in a pool of hot water at the appropriately named Hot Water Beach.
The process is simple. When the tide's out, you can hire a spade (we didn't, we just lurked and took someone elses hole when they'd finished with it) and dig yourself a hole on the beach, which fills with piping hot water from an underground source.

What the Rough Guide doesn't say is that this only happens in a small area of a very large beach, so what you end up with is a bunch of people digging holes all within a few feet of each other then not budging until the tide comes in. Much the same as any British beach I guess, but not windbreak in sight.