Yes, it’s a beach, with wavesounds and beach fun and water. But … it’s an English beach. And although I found my way there under a blue sky, it has real British weather (that’s rain, folks) piped in from the Internet.
Britannia curator Laredo Lowtide was kind enough to grant Second Life Beach an exclusive interview about Britannia Village on Green Park:
Second Life Beach: Tell me about this very British beach.
Laredo Lowtide: The beach is a loose homage to the beaches you’ll find on the southern coast of England. There’s a little of Brighton beach and a fair bit of Eastbourne. The wheel is a homage to the Brighton Wheel, the lighthouse and Martello are Eastbourne, for an example.
SLB: Is it a particular era or is it meant to be what somebody would find today in RL on those beaches?
Laredo Lowtide: We didn’t look for eras per se, more to give a feeling of a natural seaside spot. You’ll find this sort of pebble on a lot of English beaches.
SLB: Of course different ocean beaches have a wide range of different kinds of sand and rocks.
Laredo Lowtide: We used to run a London sim called London Village, so we’d pretty much exhausted London iconic builds, so it was nice to do Britannia Village.
SLB: London as a village? I find that hard to imagine.
Laredo Lowtide: In some regards after running a community high profile full sim this was like semi retirement. Bit like Eastbourne lol.
SLB: So I want to hear a bit about your water, your waves.
Laredo Lowtide: The waves we just added a few days back, switched over to more realistic ones.*
SLB: I like the splash on some of the piers, very realistic and nice.
Laredo Lowtide: Indeed. Every Sunday we have 7Sea fishing under there. I think it makes for an authentic bit of fishing.
SLB: I should make a special category in my blog for fishing, smiles.
Laredo Lowtide: Get a good amount of fishers here on Sunday evenings.
SLB: I want to ask about your “beach culture.” What other beachy things people do here .Does the big ferris wheel work?
Laredo Lowtide: Yes, you can ride the carriages. We do other events from time to time, DJs, quizzes..
SLB: Do people have houses here on your sim?
Laredo Lowtide: They can rent beach huts.
SLB: A beach hut… is that like a dressing room on the beach? or something else?
Laredo Lowtide: It’s mainly a social spot where you make what you want of it.
SLB: I notice something else that is different about this beach compared to a lot of beaches I know here. We are all wearing clothes, not bathing suits, very appropriate to February in England.
Laredo Lowtide: We have a weather system that does run in tandem to RL English weather. It’s been raining a lot of late in England, so it’s been doing so here
SLB: Wow, really? Tell me more about that! A beach with rain? What a great idea.
Laredo Lowtide: The weather here is run on an SL system that can be set to a database of global daily weather. When it rains in London, it rains here.
I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I am very excited about going back to Britannia’s pebbled beach to see the real English weather there. What a unique feature! http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Green%20Park/128/128/33/
p.s. You can keep up with new developments at the sim’s own blog: britanniavillage.wordpress.com/
p.p.s. I joined the Britannia Village group yesterday, and already this morning got offered a free Doctor Who “regenerator.” Lots of Doctor Who stuff up on the prom, as many locals are big fans of the series.
Second Life Beach 