‘Surfer Girls’
After the storm on Sunday at Mangawhai Heads, the sun broke through the following day and the waves became less messy.
With that, two intrepid surfer girls made ready to challenge the ocean.
Camaraderie and anticipation; clean breaks, churn and spray awaiting the pair.
.
‘Made For Storms’
Sunday kicked up stormy conditions in Mangawhai Heads.
The Pacific Ocean was far from pacific, and Sentinel Rock wore the force of the lashing nor-westerly wind and smashing waves.
The Rock is beautiful when it is calm, but is truly made for storms.
‘Salty Dog Day Afternoon’
…oh, to be happy and free as a dog amongst the waves…
‘Shifting Surface’
A wave is liquid motion – complex physics and restless poetry combined.
Always shifting; never repeating.
Its form is a function of wind, tide and topography.
Its colour reflects the sky and mirrors the depths.
Unique, and then gone.
There is something incredibly pure about that.
A return to the place between, of neither/nor ;to the weathered piles of the wharf, where the barnacles cling…I find myself there again.
Geometric swirls of a carved gateway to a Maori marae ( meeting place) reimagined in blue, and mirrored.
Not as the carver intended, but how it was in my mind’s eye, on a day where the mood was blue, little was calm in my head and mental waves churned like the sea below the marae.
And, after a little reflection (so to speak), I’m okay with that.
North Sea waves piledrive into the breakwater of the harbour at Pittenweem, Scotland yesterday.
The title of this post has an exclamation mark to bear witness to the velocity of wind and waves that roared and smashed during my stroll along the breakwater at dusk.Spectacular!
Powerful and unrelenting forces of nature versus man’s cunning engineering.
The breakwater protects fishing and other vessels in the harbour, where it is artificially calm.
Of course ,there are a lot less boats owing to the decline in the fisheries.
One day there may be no more haddock, crabs, lobster and prawns.
And,maybe no more breakwater if the sea has its revenge…
Curved coastal rock forms at Kohimarama Beach, Auckland.
Ancient seismic activity leaves its mark ,but is only exposed at low tide.
It is as if the stone mimics the shape of the waves that lap against it; one great curling continuum!
The ‘Wharf ‘ picture series continues – this time blurred, black and blue, which is how things look and feel in the nether world.
Twixt and ‘tween land, where you exist as other, and neither (above or below, that is).
You can scope the previous ‘Wharf ‘ posts to see where this theme comes from, if you are so minded.
My meditation on this scene is a little different this time around:
What lies between fighting the truth and running from it?
Acceptance
Wiser than fighting, braver than running, and harder than both…
As I have said before – be the barnacle!
What a match up! The Pacific Ocean against Sentinel Rock in Northland, New Zealand.
Continual surf crashes upon,and tidal motion swirls around and over, the rocks.
Pummeled.
24/7.
Every day and every night.
It’s epic, and relentless.
But still the Sentinel holds its ground, and stands guard.
Life is just as relentless as the ocean waves and tides.
It is hard to be rocklike in the face of attrition, I know. It’s easy to let your guard down when it feels there is no respite.
And there are times when I feel submerged but still manage to pull through,somehow.
And at those times I am grateful to people who are my “rocks”, shining concepts I cling to, and whatever higher power there is that guards me against destruction…
View through the branches of a pohutukawa tree and down to the waves of Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour yesterday.
‘Waitemata’ means ‘sparkling waters’ in Maori.
Very apt – the sun’s reflection from the water was absolutely dazzling to the eyes.
Anyway, enjoy your day people. I hope it sparkles like this view.
Achilles Point is one of Auckland’s many cool vantage points and one of the places I go just to look out over the rocks ,reefs ,waves ,islands,and the constantly changing horizon.
Beautiful.
Soulful.
A simple luxury ,if that is not a contradiction in terms.
Sorry if I am repeating myself – actually not really, there can be virtue in repetition (well you gotta tell yourself that just to get through this life!)…this is another in the ‘Wharf ‘ series; studies of the ‘space in between’.
And, given that it is Easter after all ,right now the recurring motif is about the place between death and resurrection, endings and beginnings. No pause is without purpose. Be the barnacle and hang on in there…
Low tide waves appear to morph into stone….beautiful curving patterns repeated.
Back to this place again ,it’s either a recurring theme or a recurring dream, that twixt and tween space that I inhabit sometimes. The previous pics in the series are variations on the theme of otherness. I am sure we all find ourselves in the transition zone from time to time….that’s okay ,it’s not a destination.
