First Light & Poseidon’s Breath hangs like a thought on the cool morning breeze lost amidst the infinite Ocean, hidden though ever present. I push off from land & soon loose sight of it as I head out into the lone expanse of Poseidons breath.
A lone gull emerges from nothingness & vanishes into the blind empty space, How does the gull navigate, how does it decide which way is life & which is death.
Alone, all alone out here, the only sight or sound is that of the sea. I stop to take a picture, back underway my GPS points right, did I drift when I stopped? I wasn’t aware of it, I’m completely disorientated nothing in sight but sea & fog. I trust my GPS & push on, for over 20 minuets I travel blind, lost in world of peaceful solitude & contemplation.
I dwell on life & its meaning, I once said ‘I am an ocean wave, heading for the shore
on getting there I lose myself
I was never the wave, I am the Ocean’.
I was thinking of the interconnectedness of all living things but I now realize its deeper than that. How like waves we are, born of energy, apparently individual though undeniably interconnected, we grow, just as a wave grows & as a wave reaches the shore it dissipates & dies as we will too one day. But is that the end of the story, does the wave reach the shore or does it arrive before uniting with the ocean once more, in a new collective form. Do we die or do we ultimately arrive to unite with the universe once more.
My chain of thought is broken by the sound of breaking waves, I don’t see any & I assume their to my right & a patch of rougher water that can occur over shallower areas of seabed. Minutes pass & I notice bright white in the distance, a breaking wave, breaking on land, I’ve drifted left, into the bay. A sense of relief fills me & I keep the shore to my left as I continue towards Sully.
Again I lose sight of land, where am I? The GPS points right, I ignore it, It points right, I don’t believe it, I’m sure the island is straight on. Disorientated I push on, into the swell, into the waves, building, growing, steepening. I know this place, these wave’s, wind against tide, swell feeling the bottom, feeling the causeway, yes that’s it, I’m on the causeway. The GPS was right, I turn right, heading south, side on to the swell though the waves are dissipating as I pass the main flow.
A shadow in the distance, closing, gaining in size, Sully Island, I’ve made it. Close to tears at this point, not through fear or relief but from the extraordinarily intimate experience that I just had with the sea, a recognition of location from local wave anomalies & with no sight of land to guide me. True I knew roughly where I was but this was a profoundly deep connection to nature, to my local environment that I trusted more than my GPS. More than ever before I truly feel like a child of the sea.
I spend a happy half hour roaming this Isle lost in the mist. Looking from the highest point the Isle bears more resemblance to Shetland or Orkney than South wales.
Its hard not to dwell on the profoundly spiritual experience I’ve just had & enjoy feeling truly alive & in the moment.
I hug the shore on the way back & make good speed with the following swell. Not a big paddle(about 7 miles from Bendricks to Sully & Back) by any means but massive in its entirety…
