The wind is strong but warm and offshore. As I come over the rise the swell is heaving in laboured breath, its mighty chest pressed down by the north wind. The wind against the swell causes an agitated chop to spike the surface of the sea.I walk to the west, to the island and the headland. Falling shadows roll across the bay. Rain. Damn.
Now the light is gone and I search unhopefully for cover. There are no overhangs or places to hide - everything worn smooth or broken. I scramble behind a tall granite rock, slide apologetically amongst the blackened spindly branches of a dead bush - courtesy of a massive fire several years ago. I cower against the meagre barrier which does give me some protection, but only because the rain is now driving at an oblique angle, almost horizontal. The wind has swung to the south and it is cold.
From my hiding post I can see the white and the aqua blue tumbling foam onto round rocks. I saw a seal there once, in close - thought it was a carcass but it popped its head up, dived and swam back out into the maelstrom.
The rain eases, the sun bursts and I come out from behind the rock to an epiphany of golden light, blinding yellow-white dancing on the spikey edges and a glow swallowing the headland. It is sublime - ovewhelms my senses and I scrabble for my journal - white pen, no, too slow.... gouache, black pen.....aaarrrgh!!
I sit on a wet rock, awkward with my little book on my knees, grateful that the page is already primed with aqua ink. The headland has disappeared in a suffusion of blinding gold. I cannot drink it all in, if I open my mouth too wide the whole ocean and sky will pour into me.
The rain spears obliquely toward me in shafts of optical cable light, thrown from the sun. I hurry - splashing the white gouache amongst the big remnant raindrops on my page. In that moment the sky and the sea and me are painting this picture together.
I have been here only an hour, an instant, and I am exhausted. I stagger back up the rock face in a daze.
As I approach the track I see the familiar flat faced Asian tourists - the ones without arses. How can you take someone seriously when they don't have a decent arse? Huh? How did I get here?
I say to myself - how quickly one moves from the sublime to the ridiculous....
