view from the cove

The water is blue silk today, and so this morning I rowed out to the middle of the cove. Then I sat in the boat and looked all around and watched the morning unfold.

A dignified seal took the air and swam about nearby, calmly ignoring me. I could hear his relations singing across the harbour, from their favourite ledges, which are actually named Seal Ledges on some maps. I think the False Passage seals have been here since time began. It's possible they own the water here, although I don't imagine they have any deeds to prove it.

The water was so clear that, as I rowed, I could see the cove's silty bottom beyond the rocky shoreline, long strands of seaweed undulating in waving shafts of sunlight. Several lobster pots have been set here, and I carefully rowed around their bright coloured lines and gently floating buoys.

A few gulls gathered on the point for a brief meeting, conferred, then went about their day. The rams wandered along the shore, foraging. Today the ram elders have allowed the fourth ram, the young one with the long tail, to join them.

White wisps of cloud drifted high above the water across a sky whose intense blueness was off the colour charts and so cannot be named. If you tried to name it you would do it an injustice, so inadequate would your effort be. A heron flew gracefully through that nameless blueness, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to sail through such a sky.