A THOUGHT ABOUT THE OCEAN

In 1992, I was part of a four-man kayak expedition down the coast of Baja California from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas. It was over 1,000 miles, and the coast is exposed to the Pacific swell all the way. That means there is major surf on most of the beaches, most of the time. Your first thought might be, “Who cares?” Believe me, if you’re in a kayak looking up at the waves, you care.

We went ashore every night and had to get off the beach every morning. We had one capsize, one pitch-pole (end-over-end), and one boat broken in half (with the paddlers in it!). I wrote a book about the trip, “We Survived Yesterday”, one of my Amazon eBooks. I wrote the following one evening while sitting on one of the beaches where we camped.

The ocean is a strange and mysterious place,

One with which our senses do not easily interface.

We see with our sight, and what we see is true,

 However, upon further investigation, everything appears new.

We listen to the sounds that come oozing from the deep,

But the meaning is guessed at, for its language we don’t speak.

We touch it and feel it, but hold it, we cannot.

We capture it in tanks, but it loses a lot.

Its soul has departed; it lost its song,

 It no longer sings, its breakers

 And the currents are gone.

We peek through the glass,

to see what lies beneath,

 But all we see,

 Has just been 

scrapped 

off some reef. 

The sun shines brightly for us every single day.

It is there even when clouds get in the way.

Sometimes the clouds are in the sky,

But at times, they are in our hearts.

The ones in the sky will pass by

The ones in our hearts

Will also go if we

Are strong and

Don’t cry.

Let the sunshine on you, it’s there every day.