A slow journal about the sea: tides, light, weather, and the small habits of the coast. Written between walks, mostly for myself, posted here so the notes don't get lost.
The water came in quietly today, without the usual chop. When the sea is this flat you can hear the pebbles turning under the first line of foam — a soft, almost polite rattling that stops the moment the wave runs out of energy. Fishermen were out before six, three small boats on the horizon line, moving so slowly they looked painted on.
Every beach has its own archaeology. Ours gives up green glass, rope fragments, the occasional bone-white shell of a cuttlefish. The sea grinds everything down to smoothness — glass becomes indistinguishable from stone in five years of surf. There's a lesson in there somewhere about patience, but mostly I just like the colors.
Old coastal rule, still reliable: mackerel sky in the morning means wind by evening. Yesterday proved it again — the clouds came in like fish scales at nine, and by five the whitecaps were marching in rows. If you walk the shore often enough, the weather stops being a surprise and becomes a schedule.
Same route every day: down the steps, left along the wall, past the two painted buoys, coffee at the kiosk that opens late and pretends it doesn't. The owner knows my order and still asks every morning. I think that's his way of keeping things human.
Because the sea changes every day and stays the same forever, and a journal is the only way to notice both. Next week: the spring plankton bloom, if the water keeps warming at this rate.