Cold Seas and Cuttlebones

Friday 21st February

Imagine Wednesday. A few days prior. Time drags, doesn’t it? Too much noise. Get your head back to the beach. The beach is slow. The beach is constant*.

Wednesday was the best of times and the worst of times. Silver-scale, pewter-scale, grey-scale. Breathtaking bruised winter sky, there is nothing more beautiful, and gently rippling sea.

It’s low tide too, just half an hour before the first full low. Shallow water, enough to swim in if you keep your knees up.

This is beauty and beauty is positive, however, the bad news is the wind, which rips off your hat and bends your hood and finds a way to snake down the back of your neck and chill your bones in a moment.

Supposedly, the wind had turned down, this was a ‘south easterly’, moderate. Feels like easterly very strong indeed.

I get into the water. The beauty was all around, still-ish water, very soft shingle underfoot on the way in and out (don’t waste time standing around, it’s painful). Once submerged, you’re away from the wind.

The water is clear, I am grateful to swim in clean sea water. From the water you can see the emerging sun over the rippling silver. Heavenly, an out-of-world experience.

Out-of-world also because the sea temperature is five point three degrees. FIVE POINT THREE. AGAIN. It’s very cold. The temperature was on its way up when it slipped off the pavement and here we are again at sub six degrees. Sub five and a half degrees in fact.

Where does that come from? Unsettled weather churning up the temperature. Unsettled right here recently. Sometimes far far away. The outcome is a very cold swim that is hard to ignore. One changes from wet to dry as very fast as one can. Scuttle.

I’m last in and last out because I’ve made the bold decision to take photos before I get my clothes off for swimming. Rock and roll.

The high water line is just behind where we’ve parked our stuff — a refugee encampment of towels and robes and bags and hats and so on in one straight line on the shingle facing the sea.

The high water line is distinct and diverse and defined against the shingle. It is littered with cuttlefish bones. Aside from the cuttlefish, side to the cuttlefish, are tangled strands of seaweed, plump with seed, sticks and twigs and waste rope, occasional shards of wood that, were he present, I would attempt to persuade the boatbuilder had been knocked from the hull of a sunken galleon in a recent storm.

As we leave the beach, I mention the cuttlebones to Rupert’s Mum. ‘Do you think they came off a ship?’ In my head, the world’s supply of budgie food had floated out from a container that had slipped off a huge ship in a storm-force gale, broken and released its load which somehow had washed up with us.

‘No, I think that they have probably come of their own accord.’ She’s the one who knows about sea creatures and birds and wild animals and farmed animals and pets. She’s my reference and as a result, I’m driven to find out more about cuttlefish.

What I call cuttlefish are actually cuttlebones. The real things are sea molluscs, sisters to squid and octopus. They have a unique internal shell (the cuttlebone) which they use for buoyancy by enabling its complex porous structure to absorb air or water.

There are a large number of varieties of cuttlefish, including the (whoa) giant cuttlefish which can grow to a length of more than half a metre. They are one of the most intelligent cephalopods, shape shifting, colour-shifting, W-shaped pupils, eight arms and suckered tentacles with which they catch their prey.

Honestly, unless you know more about cuttlefish than me, (most people probably), I urge you to invest a little time finding out more. The more you know, the more wide-eyed you will be. Distractions from news are wonderful.

I’m writing this on Friday. A completely different can of fish. Hefty wind from the south, tide two hours before low. Beach temperature positive, water increased to five point four degrees.

I chose not to swim. Many of my pals did and reported quite a challenge getting in and out. It wasn’t pretty.

Those on the shingle made an impromptu beach-litter pick. Tuck the tiny good things in where you can.

I’m adding a picture in of Friday (today) and of the high-water-line cuttlebones. The main image is of enchanted Wednesday.

The gulls were high, wings out, feathered gliders in the wind.

Friday 21st February sea and high tide line

Wednesday 19th February (enchanted cold)

Please send my work to someone who you think might enjoy reading it.

*our beach is constant-ish. There are challenges on the horizon but we ignore them. It’s a whole other story and not for today.