Currently, our beautiful South Australian coastline is being devastated by a widespread algal bloom named karenia mikimotoi. I can almost type that straight off without checking the spelling, since it's been in our news headlines so frequently. Its effect on the sea in which it spreads is pernicious, since it's toxic to hundreds of different forms of marine life. That's ravaged our seafood industry, and I've personally seen dead fish and stringrays washed up along my favourite beaches. You can see from my photo above that this not normal foam, but more like a horrific, marshmallow ooze. Its cause is attributed to converging factors. Drawn-out summer heat caused unusually warm ocean temperatures, which were exacerbated by the lingering effects of some serious river flooding a couple of years ago. Since I moved to the coast with my family around seven years ago, I've never taken this soothing setting for granted, and to see it like this makes me long for the end of the scourge even more.
From the sound of the scientific reports we've been following, it's a matter of waiting it out, since the situation is dynamic, responding to daily conditions.
In the meantime, since my mind has been on the ocean, I thought I'd compile more sea-themed literary excerpts and quotes, to follow on from this one, which included words from Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne Bronte, and Walt Whitman, among others. As I keep reading, I come across increasingly more incidents in which fictional characters are awed by their glimpses of the ocean.
1) In her novel Longbourn, Jo Baker's young character, James Smith, is amazed by his first sight of the ocean, as a roving soldier in the British army. 'Glimpsing it for the first time, he was astonished by the silver brilliance of the sea, the way it just kept moving, but never shifting from its place. It seemed at once beautiful and monstrous.'
2) In Emil and the Three Twins, a wonderful German kids' classic from the 1930s, Frau Heimbold and her two grandkids, Emil and Pony, share a surreal moment when they view the sea for the first time. 'At the edge of the shore began the sea. Whichever way they looked, there was no end to it. It seemed to be made of liquid mercury. Far off on the horizon a ship was sailing into the falling night... The two children and their grandmother were overwhelmed. They stood there in silence, feeling as if they would never speak again in their lives... Eventually Emil's grandmother said softly, 'At last I know why I've lived to be such an old woman.'
And the next day, 'Sometimes a succession of waves ran across the surface of the water, and Pony remarked: 'It looks as if an invisible shop assistant was unrolling bright silk on an endless counter.'
3) In Barbara Kingsolver's epic Demon Copperhead, all the young hero's attempts to visit ocean have been thwarted until the very final chapter. He's on the cusp of viewing it at last, with his love interest Angus (aka Agnes) Winfield.
Angus: I'm serious, I'm giving you the ocean.
Demon: It's winter.
Angus: You know what. They don't roll it up and put it away. It's just sitting there. Take it or leave it, home skillet. One goddamn Atlantic Ocean on offer.
4) Salesian priest Flor McCarthy's wonderful reflection. This treasure is found in secondhand book I picked up long ago entitled, 'Windows on the Gospel.' Here, he is addressing the sea as a perfect destination to get away to.
'It would be hard to find a more suitable place. Here one experiences greatness and grandeur. Everything speaks of permanence and timelessness, the ceaseless ebb and flow of the tide, the sound of the surf that is never stilled, the infinity of sand grains beneath my feet, the horizon which seems so near yet can never be reached, the immensity of the star-strewn sky above me. There is a little bit of eternity of every seashore. Yet nowhere does one experience one's own finiteness so acutely. I look at the clear footprints I leave behind me in the soft sand and realize they won't survive even one tide. Suspended between time and eternity, I am at once humbled and elevated.'
5) Finally, I'd like to include this excerpt from the fanfic, based on Louisa May Alcott's Little Men, which I've recently completed. In this scene, Uncle John tries to understand why Emil, his sea-mad teenage nephew, can't shake off an all-consuming desire to go to sea.
'His uncle filtered some cool earth between his fingers. ‘You probably wouldn’t remember, but Uncle Laurie and I once took you and Franz for a boat ride. It was soon after your Uncle Fritz married your Aunt Jo. Your brother was content to sit still, but we kept having to pluck you back by your shirttails, because you were so obsessed with the thought of glimpsing a mermaid or hydra.’‘I do remember that day,’ Emil said. ‘I thought I saw a giant kraken and leaned over so far I got my nose wet.’
‘Well, now that you’re fourteen, you do realize those beings are mythical, don’t you?’ Uncle John cleared his throat and twisted his fingers together. ‘Uh, they don’t really exist.’
‘I know what the word mythical means, Uncle John.’ Emil took care not to sound irritated.
His uncle turned a shade of red. ‘Of course you do. So now since the magical element is gone…’ he cut his hand through the air, ‘you still want to go, even though you know the prosaic truth?’
Emil began shaping a dirt tower with his hands. ‘Sure, I probably won’t see mermaids, sirens, or hydras. But there’s still a good chance I’ll see whales, porpoises, octopuses and dolphins. Maybe even a shark or two. So what you call the prosaic truth is still magical enough for me, sir.’
And up above is another shot I took very recently of our sick sea, this time behind Granite Island. You can see that crusty ick that floats on the surface. It's heartbreaking to simply wait this natural disaster out, but if you're the sort of person who prays, please keep our situation in mind.
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