with Marines, and sports White Air fails to create a festival feel despite Doves headline set

As Day 2 rolled around, I thought I really should try some of the extreme sports on offer. But which ones? The blazing sunshine for a second day running made the climbing look particularly unappetising, I hadn't brought my bikini, and my hangover was making itself very clear the subject of me abseiling down a wall. I eventually plumped for zorbing.

Zorbing, for those of you who don't know (and where have you been?!) is where you climb into the middle of what is essentially a very large, inflatable hamster ball, and you get rolled down a hill. The beach, however, is quite conspicuous in its absence of the aforementioned hills. No, what it had was a track. A narrow track. Marked out by hay bales. And I swear at one point it went uphill. Needless to say, I wasn't in the running for winning the time trial, but pushing yourself along inside a giant inflatable ball, bumping into hay bales and accidentally getting the entrance underneath you causing you to nearly fall out is something everybody should do before they die. If only to make me feel a little less foolish.

I retired to the safety of the stage, where Ben Howard was tapping the festival vibe perfectly with some laid back indie folk and a wonderful cellist. From Devon, he obviously appreciates the joy of chilling out by the sea, and his set went down a storm with those choosing to eschew the adrenaline rush of power boating or kite surfing, at least for a while. White Belt Yellow Tag attempted to up the tempo of the festival for their rock-fuelled tunes, but were met with resistance from a crowd who just wanted to sit and drink their beer in the sunshine.

Natty brought everyone back to their happy place with a wonderfully laid back set chock full of soulful dub and excellent rapping, although those after more of a challenge from music only had to listen to the lyrics – hard-hitting truths about the state of the world today (on a personal level, not just a political one) and people's failure to do anything about it. He owned the stage, buoying everyone up, until the end of his third song, when he was informed he only had time for one more. There didn't seem to be any reason for this, as the schedule was running exactly to time, and he was justifiably pissed off. However, he was also too wily to be stopped so easily, and 10 minutes later, coming to the end of his 'one song', he left the stage – pride intact and public opinion firmly on his side.

The marine display on Saturday (International Talk Like a Pirate Day) simulated a situation where pirates had taken 3 hostages, who had to be rescued by the Royal Marines. There were people sliding down a helicopter rope, a beach landing in a very snazzy RHIB, and then they stormed the beaches, throwing down green smoke and firing (assumedly fake) assault rifles. It was all terribly exciting to watch, but it did leave a sour taste in my mouth to see a couple of the marines kick the 'dead bodies' before escaping to safety.

There is an interesting style conflict within The Boxer Rebellion, between lead singer Nathan and bassist Adam, in their preppy skinny-jeans-shirt-and-tie, and lead guitarist Todd and drummer Piers, with their leather jackets and long greasy rocker hair. When they took to the stage, it was to play a very different set to a semi-recent gig at the World's End (I was reliably informed). It may have been the small crowd, sitting scattered across a wide expanse of concrete, it may have been the (still) bright sunshine reminding them that yes, it was still quite early. They played a very good set, but it was apparently less raw, less ferocious, then when they have performed in smaller venues.

Before Doves took the stage to close the Saturday night, a large proportion of the festival crowds were waiting with anticipation by the high dive tower, where the night-time 'fire display' was about to start. This proved to be every bit as spectacular as that title would lead one to imagine, starting with a diver being drenched in paraffin and lit on fire, remaining on the dive platform for 6 seconds before diving down to extinguish herself in the pool. A very impressive display of high diving followed, and the finishing gambit was a dive from the 25m platform at the very height of the tower, with the diver carrying two flaming torches as he jumped. It was, quite simply, electrifying.

The Doves fully indulged the crowd with a set full of hits, delivered with true panache and enthusiasm, to some wonderful background visuals. By 'Kingdom Of Rust', everyone was ecstatic, and the general response can be best summed up in the words of singer Jez after 'Caught By The River'; "I've never seen people mosh to that song before". They didn't break for an encore, possibly due to time restraints, but finished with a stormingly energetic version of 'There Goes The Fear' that had people begging for more.

Sadly, for all its good ideas, and there are many, White Air never quite feels like a festival. Madeira Drive feels like a street with some stalls, and the beach feels...well, it feels like a beach, albeit with more sports than normal. The two don't really integrate all that well, perhaps because the music and the sports attracted two distinct groups of people, but also possibly because we didn't even realise there was a beach until Saturday afternoon – we missed over half of the festival for an entire day.

With a bit more thought put into positioning and signposting, with a proper programme to get people really enthused about the activities on offer, with more integration of the two parts of the festival, (they had a whole beach, and it didn't contain one single BBQ or bar. Definitely a missed opportunity, in my opinion), they could really be on to something. The weekend could have been great, and while it was a lot of fun, I didn't come away feeling like I'd been to a festival.

It was too spread out, with too much space, so that people just sat on their own with their mates, and didn't mingle. I got chatting to three lovely guys during the Doves set (James, Dan and Mark. James wants me to let you know that he's the coolest, and he did have Google Sky on his phone, but between you and me, Dan had the best T-shirt), but over the whole weekend, that was the closest I came to the kind of the random hedonism I'm used to.

I never got that different-reality, away-from-it-all feeling I've come to know, and to love, and to expect from festivals. I wasn't utterly exhausted but reliving every single minute on the way home. I wasn't anxiously awaiting getting on the forum and exchanging tales with other attendees. And that's unusual, for me. Without some indication that an atmosphere like that would exist next year (and personally I think it would be almost impossible unless the army presence was severely minimised), I wouldn't go again.

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