A simple family outing to the beach turned into a shocking brush with danger for Gareth and Kelly Gravell and their two children, Erin and Ellis, when an innocent-looking object they had played near turned out to be anything but harmless.

The Gravell family had headed to Burry Port beach in Carmarthenshire for a relaxing day by the sea. It was the kind of visit they’d made many times before—warm sun, salty air, and the endless curiosity that comes with children exploring the shoreline. Among the usual driftwood, seaweed, and tide-washed relics, one large, rust-covered, barnacle-coated object caught their attention. To the kids, it looked like an old buoy. They climbed on it, laughed, posed for photos, and even made light-hearted comments about its size, joking that it resembled a “big bomb.”

But what they thought was a harmless part of the seaside landscape turned out to be something far more dangerous.

Just five days after that visit, local authorities cordoned off the very same beach. Rangers from the Carmarthenshire Council had been alerted to the mysterious object, which was still sitting in the sand, now more fully exposed by the shifting tides. Upon investigation by experts, the chilling truth came out: the object was not a buoy at all—it was a live, unexploded mine from World War II.