Sunday, July 19, 2020

Down to the strand and into the sea on a perfect day

Is it because it's home that it is so spectacularly beautiful?

Yesterday was a blue-sky day in West Kerry, maybe all over the land.

Full tide was the optimum time, circa 15.00. The water coming in over the sand. Perfect swimming conditions. The little waves strong enough to give you a gentle push. 

Floating on your back, looking directly at the blueness above. The occasional whiff of white touching another fluff of white.

Being in the sea, whether swimming, floating, standing, paddling, lounging or lolling about, has to be one of the greatest activities a human being can do. It's pure freedom, it's relaxation, it's adventure and it can be madness too. That urge to keep swimming out and out, that border with darkness. Swimming has to remind one of the edge.

Yesterday the waters at Castlegregory strand were perfect for swimming. The people in Castlegregory go down to the strand, they never go down to the beach.

Swimming erases all worries and anxieties. Sea water seems to remove  fear. One loses the sense of danger. And how it heals.

An extended moment of perfection.

1 comment:

Andreas said...



Michael,

surely you've heard of the fountain of youth (Mystic water that has the abilities to make whoever drinks it or bathes in it younger). I listened to a podcast about this topic a while back and the speaker was convinced that it was the alkaline water that de-acidified the acidic bodies after many hours of bathing!

Otto Warburg had received the Nobel Prize in 1931 for the discovery that:"No disease including cancer, can exist in Alkaline Environment".

And you know what - sea water is alkaline. For this reason alone, we should probably jump into the sea more often!

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