Cotton-puff clouds scud across the sky, silver-lined by the sun, heralding the coming storm. It will coincide with tomorrow night's total lunar eclipse. I don't know if we will see that now as heavy rain is forecast. The eclipse will bring unusually high spring tides due to the tugging of the gravitational forces of the sun and the moon. It seems that our storms coincide regularly with the full moon and the resultant huge seas create chaos along the Atlantic seaboard, breaking windows of houses close to the sea, washing vast clumps of kelp up the roads and into gardens. Body boarders surf over the lawns of the Kom, normally 6 feet or more above the high water mark, and when the sea recedes, huge boulders are left on the lawns like glacial moraine.
I went down to the rocks this evening to see where the sea lice were. They are the best indicators of how high the tide will come as they make sure that they are well beyond it, even crossing roads and climbing garden walls. These fascinating creatures were still on the rocks, so the storm will probably only make landfall later tomorrow unless we are lucky and it blows itself out.
A small yacht was passing and it brought the words of John Masefield to mind:
"I must go down to the seas again
To the lonely sea and the sky
And all I ask is a tall ship
And a star to steer her by".
A bit of poetry that encompasses (sorry!) the yearning of many to escape the ratrace of life!
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