Everyday Amazing Adventures
A morning sub aqua light show
Some days are just too beautiful to be writing about death and misery so this morning I decided not to. Most days when I wake I make my way to the garden to sit next to my favourite tree. It is an old gnarled Beauty of Bath apple tree with the most gorgeous delicate blossoms. It fell over at some point in its 100 year history but rather stubbornly kept growing, albeit sideways. The morning light catches this corner just perfectly so I sit with the birds who remind me the world is in fact very beautiful.
In the blink of an eye an hour has passed so I’m on my way to the sea.
The water - perhaps reflective of the general state of things on earth - has been turbulent these past few days but today the Atlantic is calm. I have a (borrowed - thank you Mick) snorkel mask and the sky is blue and oddly enough on arrival, Doolin Pier is devoid of people.
More and more the underwater world is what holds my fascination because every time without fail, there’s something new to see. Today it’s a shoal of fish. They arrive to greet me and for a while I’m mesmerised by their shiny scales reflecting rays of morning sunlight that pierce through the surface and bounce in all directions. They flit about above the rocky Burren seabed where seaweeds grow in amongst the grikes. They move in unison appearing to know instinctively ahead of a change of direction and when that happens it’s fast and free flowing. I’ve never swam in a shoal of fish this big in Irish waters and I’m looking left and right to try find its edge. It seems around 200 fish are cruising easily all around me. They take off out to sea and I kick off to follow but within six or eight strokes they are away out of sight so I turn back for the far shore.
Some days I don’t bother poking my head above water to see how far I’ve gone and just follow the flow of momentum. I spot a lone fish peering at me from under iridescent green eyelids. He’s got delicate blue streaks and translucent fins that he’s flexing back and forth in a ravine of shallow seaweed. My movements mirror his and we exchange greetings before he falls back to nibbling whatever he is eating for breakfast. Not much further along the coast I find a sea snail matching his exact colours and marvel at this for a minute before moving on over giant kelp fronds extending farther than the eye can see. Everything underwater ebbs and flows in a soothing swing action and soon I’m in a forest of sea spaghetti.
I pluck off a handful for dinner (tastes like salty pasta) and shove it inside my swimsuit and carry on again, heading west now over rocks with limpets and urchins shimmering in watery sunlight. Over sea lettuce and gut weed and algae and wrack, all moving in the same rhythmic motion, over and back, over and back. My favourite is the pink moss seaweed that looks resplendent against its backdrop of light grey limestone.
Realising my hands have got cold I pop my head up and find I’m quite a distance now from the pier. Some days I wonder if my body will shut down before I make it back but since today is special I don’t care so much. I am looking for my starfish friend from two weeks ago. He was white and azure blue and I’d have missed him only that he was waving at me with one of his arms. No sign of him today so I pop up and take off the mask and gulp in some air and take in the view. Inisheer is out to my right, Cliffs of Moher directly ahead and the pier, off to my left, looks like its coming to life. I stay here a minute to watch the cliffs from the water. It’s important to appreciate different perspectives.
Now I am officially freezing so I put back on the mask and head for shore at a steady pace, marvelling at all before me. I’m swimming east into the sunlight so the sea spaghetti becomes almost see-through and shards of colour bouncing every direction are like some extraordinary sub aqua light show. I swim on through this morning disco party towards the shore, shouting a speedy hello to a spider crab standing stationary below.
By the time I get back I find I’m a long way off dead so I drop off dinner and dive in again for good measure.
I meet an American in the car park who asks if it’s cold and I tell him it’s balmy, actually and he should get in. Technically that’s not a lie because it’s definitely warmer than winter. He gives the familiar side-eye and shouts back,
“No thanks I’m good.”
I don’t know why this makes me giggle, I might be high on hypothermia. A car pulls up then, blaring traditional Irish music with rather too much base and the driver shouts something indecipherable in my direction. I dance out a little jig by way of reply. He’s waving his hands in the air behind the steering wheel and on this note I depart Doolin for morning Mass, to give thanks for the glory of it all.
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Warm thanks to those that continue to support my work, it is much appreciated.
A piece full of beauty and tension
Good on ya Louise.
I notice among a few people who, prior to our most recent World experience, wouldn't have taken the time to pass any remarks on the small things around us in the natural environment. They have a new, or maybe renewed, appreciation for our surroundings and the critters that live within it. Maybe the "coof" and its ancillary agenda have had the contradictory effect of waking people up, as opposed to its original goal of subduing them even further.
Time to separate the superficial bullshit from the simple and spiritual.