I am endlessly fascinated by the mysterious and ever-changing colours of the ocean.
Today, it is a sweeping vista of my favourite ink-for-my-fountain-pen colour of royal blue, enhanced by flashes of white that enable my state of eternal hope… is it a whale … a porpoise. Rarely a reality, but it happened twice this trip, so the hope is nourished.
But the blue is so beautiful, the beauty enhanced by the fact that any shade of blue is my favourite colour, and so sweeping, and so eternal. Mesmerizing. Within the waves are the darker shades of blue-black ink that transform the water into a living thing that shifts and changes before my eyes.
The white of waves and of our wake is lacy on the blue seas, vividly and evocatively reminding me of the beautiful hand-made lace I saw and coveted in Brugge and across Normandy. The froth swirls and spirals much as the skirts of a flamenco dancer twirls (and we all know how I feel about twirly skirts) or the crinolines of a can can dancer swish and reshape. The laciness is ephemeral, surfing across the surface in the way that northern lights chase across the sky. You can lose yourself in the constantly changing, never repeating patterns, each wave’s froth unique in the same way that each snow flake is unique.
Yesterday, a cool, misty, foggy day, the sea was a slate green/grey. Cold, brooding, but very alive. Every now and again the sun burst out, creating a golden path that our ship followed, westward and home.
And last night, after dinner, the full moon shone down on the sea creating a silver sweep of diamonds that was breathtaking. Camera failed, but my mind’s eye captured it perfectly.
I have always been fascinated by the sea, in the same way that a campfire or a fireplace fire fascinates and mesmerizes. I stood by our tent on Long Beach on Vancouver Island many nights marvelling at and revelling in the phosphorescent waves of the Pacific at my feet and a heaven full of stars above me.
I remember gasping out loud at the impossible turquoise of the Mediterranean when I saw it for the first time. Until I witnessed it first hand, I had always thought that photos of it with those incredible shades of turquoise, were either taken with highly specialized lenses or had been created in a lab with photoshopping techniques. But my very own eyes beheld the amazing shades of turquoise and marvelled and were awed in the fullest sense of that overworked word.
Now I have to edit myself. Because it isn’t just the ocean/sea that fascinates. It’s rivers. And lakes. Talk about impossible colours. The green of the glacier fed lakes and rivers of our mountains. And the amber of some mountain streams and the peaty streams of Norhtern Scotland.
And the white water and the waterfalls, from tiny meltwater falls throughout the mountains to the incredible power of Niagara.
The power of water is fascinating. I remember standing high above the incoming tide, on a pier out into the Pacific somewhere on the California or Oregon coast. I am a prairie girl and had never witnessed the power of water. I watched the waves pounding in, rushing to the shore and was awed, terrified, and overwhelmed by the force of the water, knowing that nothing could withstand it.
I guess I have to edit myself again and say not just water, but Mother Nature. Thank you Mother Nature for the glorious, fascinating world you have given us.
*With a tip of the hat to Rod McKuan’s song How many colours make up the sky, a piece I played regularly on my CJUS-FM shift during my university days.