A SECOND CRUMB OF CALM

Even in inshore waters a calm can bring a trace of eeriness, a touch of melancholy. The sailing boats going nowhere with their canvas hanging limply look withered and uncared for and any kind of motor boat that splutters out and scratches the glass is a vandal leaving his tag on the calm of the day. But for the lucky oarsman now is the time and tide to go floating and boating. On such a tide his boat will be rowed with long and leisurely sweeps of the oar for there is no need to pull hard and dig deep and chop in and out of the water as there is when there are waves be to cut across. His boat sweeps smoothly onward, gently, effortlessly like a swan gliding across a mill pond.

When the wind dies, the tide inherits, which is to say that whenever there is a flat calm the tide comes into its own and idle men can take full advantage of its ebb and flow. They can rest their oars, easy all, and let their boats drift with the rising waters up river until such time as the tide is full. If, as here on the Estuary, there is a waterside pub at the top of the tide, I am thinking first and foremost of the famous Turf Hotel, (pictured above,) so much the better. Then, a merry crew, perhaps beneath the setting sun, they can take themselves home again without care, putting their backs into it only here and there, now and again, once in a while. This is the kind of boating of which George and Harris and Jerome dreamt but hardly found on the upreaches of the Thames. It is the kind of boating to be enjoyed full leisurely, all in the golden afternoon, the kind of boating that calls, alas!, if only they were plentiful, for pretty girls in white dresses with pure unclouded brows and straw hats and parasols and picnic baskets.

The old fishermen could see the fish beneath the surface swimming up the Estuary on such a flat tide and once or twice I have seen for myself the faint chevrons on the surface of the water where the mullet and the bass are pushing their noses up river. If they do come up the Estuary when there is dead calm, the bass and mullet leap flashing out of the water and of a blue moon an angler can find himself in the middle of a school of sporting fish and can pull them in on a pipeclay lure.

CALM ON THE ESTUARY

In Lympstone at the water’s edge stands a clock tower with a pyramidal roof, a pint-sized version of Saint Stephen’s tower at the Houses of Parliament, and on top of the pyramid is a weather vane in the form of an arrow. When there is no wind five young starlings come to perch on this vane, from time to time they balance on only one leg each. These contented birds might be said to be demonstrating to the world sufficient evidence of calm on the Estuary. But perhaps not! Come to think of it, as tipsters, these five starlings should not be relied on. They have been known to deceive the innocent sailor and keep him at home on a tide when he could be winging up and down the river like a fiddler’s elbow for there is many a time that a fine breeze is waiting out in the channels that does not make itself known in Lympstone’s cove.

The surface of the water is a much better indicator. The tides flood and ebb but they hardly ruffle the water. The slightest breeze does so. In a true calm the waters are a mirror to the sky, a pewter mirror to a cloudy sky, a silver mirror to a sunny sky, a star spangled mirror to a clear night sky.

Calm at sea has a bad reputation and a ghostly feel about it. Was calm not the albatross’s revenge? It can’t have been much fun to be trapped aboard a painted ship upon a painted ocean and in the great days of sail a prolonged calm was understandably dreaded by all ancient mariners and whistlers for winds. There is a boatman in a Goethe poem who is also somewhat perturbed by an awesome Meeresstille. (my translation)

Stillness reigns upon the waters.
Nothing stirs. The sea is calm.
His boat as still as death, the skipper
Gazes ’round him in alarm.

On every side a fearful silence.
No single breath from any quarter
And far as eye can see no wavelet
Frets the surface of the water.

Tomorrow: still becalmed!

MORE LIGHT

The light on the Estuary gives a daily dramatic performance. It has a full repertoire. Recently there has been much of the phenomenon where light falls in great vertical shafts from a dark sky. This drama, common on the Estuary, called for comment in the ages before television dimmed our sensibilities.. Ancient dualistic religions saw in these spears of sunshine the weapons of the Powers of Light thrusting into the Powers of Darkness. Just so Egyptian gods speared the crocodile with a piercing downstroke and so too the Christian George lanced the dragon beneath his horse’s hoofs. My friend, the sculptor used to call this phenomenon Jehovah descending from Heaven which must have been a reference to some painting now unknown to me. When the wind whips up the waters and the light catches the waves large and small the waters delight the eye and their beauty cheers the inner man. When, however, there is only a breath of wind the waters work an even greater magic. There is always a rich spiritual quality to a calm rising tide filling slowly and to be in a small boat on such a tide floating gently out whether in sun or cloud is to be in a heaven on earth Nightime only enhances the beauty of light on calm water and to sail across the Estuary under the stars of a clear night and when the water is a sheet of glass is to be in the closest possible harmony with the spirit on the waters, to be confronted with the wonder of time and space and existence. The water below is as deep as the sky above is high and the lonely boatman in his boat is as a nothing suspended beween these two infinities. Only lone aeronauts and perhaps astronauts can feel closer to the infinite. Moon and stars, flashing buoys and the many lights of the waterside are reflected and refracted by the waters and their glory is doubled. Goethe wrote a song for the spirits, plural, over the waters, Gesang der Geister über den Wassern, which was set thrice set by Schubert and once by Carl Loewe. I like the line : in dem glatten See weiden ihr Anlitz alle Gestirne. That’s true enough. Here on the Estuary the stars do indeed look down. They swell. They throw down their spears. They become quite Van Goghish. They positively stare. They go so far as to eyeball themselves, and it is certain that they always find their own reflected faces quite delightful and then they go so far as to preen themselves. I have caught them at it. (Tomorrow: A boat-shaped poem entitled : My Boat is caught in Sunshine. )

THE SPIRIT ON THE WATERS

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Not the least of the joys which the Estuary affords is the ever changing interplay of light on water. This is at times so strikingly beautiful that it almost brings a rational man to believe in ghosts and gods. Almost, but not quite! It seems probable to me that the teller of tall stories who begot the Book of Genesis was well acquainted with the glory of dazzling sunlight silvering some stormy Semitic sea or perhaps with the unfathomable beauty of moon and stars reflected in the mirror of calm waters. I imagine that he fondly believed that he had seen with his own eyes the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters. Astonished by such beauty the Big Question Mark that we all have to confront seems never to be bigger. But for me the Spirit only asks questions. It offers no answers

At times the light is such that the whole Estuary becomes a glittering silver platter. I have often sailed home down river under a cloud while ahead of me, out to the Bight and so to sea, there has been bright sunshine and beneath the sun the waves have been dancing and sparkling fit to bust. At other times my boat beneath the sun has danced along a narrow silver path down to the sea like Dorothy dancing up the Yellow Brick Road. At other times… but there are too many variations on this theme. Let me simply say again what I have said before, the light on the water is ever changing, ever new and very often breathtakingly beautiful.