From the 'end of the pier' I see a surfer at the Crab wipe-out in a roaring breath of outrageous foam, towering over the ocean's silvery blue.
The prop-beaten bare bottom at the foot is sharply outlined by worn-down fissures. I think I see a flatfish flounder by but it's just the light-play on a smooth undulation.
No dolphin anymore at Doolin to distract me from all the other beauty that seemed to fade into the background at her presence. Dusty has moved to Inisheer, the first of the Aran Islands, a ferry trip and a hoist job away.
It was half-tide and of singular clarity. Such a treat to swim in see-through water. Where the deep is not a leap into the dark, a somewhat sinister voyage to the end of your breath, but only a wing away from a world full of wonder, the more enhancing for the limit of breath, fuelled by the power of nowness. It's a spatial invitation, a welcome to be wherever you want to glide in a weightless world.
The spider crabs are on the move again and slowly claw their way under the waving weeds, now you see me, now you don't. I pick one up, bring it to the surface for closer inspection. The carapace looks like prehistoric armour, sculptured to withstand the ages. I carefully put her to the seabed again.
Viewed from the sea-ling it seems like lottery balls have been loosely strewn across the sea-floor. With a deep dive I bring one up. The still quills of the handball sea urchin change pattern in sweeps at every angle alteration. I kindly rest it back on the sea bed.
From the Donkey I cross over to the Crab in about five minutes. That is a blind swim, even in the clearest water you see no bottom. But therefore also absolute with a lot of fluke bang and wing slant. I'm always on triple double alert for ferries and other watercraft: at the onset, well on the way and when I get worried. And when in high waves I even multi-double my watch. If I hear them they're seriously near. For speedboats I stick out half the waterwing.
At the North of Crab I take a break from the cross-over. Then I throw myself in the roller coasters that tear me capriciously across toothed shallows. In this rodeo of white horses it is crucial not to hit the ground. Below me sun-gilded kelp-straps lash over the edge of a steep face, turn around their roots, fold, linger and take flight.
When I swim into the cleft, delicately spun infinite threads of nano-bubbles, orbiting in differing windings greet me in light hearted, fine-tuned streamers. Airy-fairy fly-bys.
For company I like to make a champagne ascend surrounded by hundreds of iBreath bubbles. In climbing they catch ever more light and celebrate a happy end. Sometimes among them are larger, flattened and mirroring UFOs with a girdle of satellite bubbelettes, that split or by decrease of pressure explode.
Fish, all sizes, leisurely elegant in swaying their fin-rays, but ever ready for a startled dash. They hang in an unearthly absence of weight, descend in fluency, shyly rise. They like to gather over silver-sandy deserts, turning these into an oasis of life, skirted by a beckoning hide-out.
As deep as my dare to still the hunger of my roving eyes. A sea cucumber in exotic attire rears its puzzling head. A conger slithers through the warping weeds. A dogfish on patrol thrusts her slender tail against her spying head.
A fleet of sand eels wags its formidable presence in my fo'c'sle. It looks like they're migrating, but I think they're just heading from where they are now. When I invade their ranks they scatter in clusters in a temporary diaspora.
Then, out of the blue, something's hooked to my snorkel, a rope coming from a catch buoy that does not feel like descending yet. I keep lifting it until it practically leads straight down. A deep draft and I chase it down to the deep. Clearing, swimming, clearing, swimming until the next ear pain. I see the vague rectangle of a lobster cage. No prisoners. My alarm goes off, up now. Way above me shimmers the silver blanket.
I slam the wing down for a quick start, turn it vertical and bring it up on the way. Pure strokes in full water, flexing power around my streamline, no bubble can keep up with me, one last wing slam, snorkel out for no air to blow it clear. Gasping I recover in my own bubble bath.
Another rope, another time frame. This one holds a buoy, darkened by sunburnt growths and heavily bearded under water with generations of finely filamented weeds, soft as the pubic hair of a virgin mermaid.
The swell at south Crab is majestic and played by a plenty of surfers. I'm lifted by a mountain of water and see it break on line in a clear blue roller. When push comes to shove it feels like I'm sucked towards a wave a lot stronger than when I'm pushed by it the other way. Also, there's an easy advance in a current, but surprisingly smooth sailing to keep your ground against a wave. Still I really have to struggle against the waves towards south Crab and return in hardly any time at all, close to swimming through a worm hole.
The cross-over to Doolin Point is somewhat tedious. I hardly loose sight of the sand bottom and mostly before expecting I reach the monotonous bush-bush of dense seaweed.
At the pier a ferry is moored. I check and see passengers leave the boat. Safe so. Behind the ferry I'm swept outward by the prop water and fly like a skater through the outer bend only to feel sucked around through the inner bend. Full stern to port now as ahead lies the mince meat course.
Like a merman, sidewise on the slipway, with numbed and crooked fingers I peel off my heel straps. In my traditional gravity rant I painstakingly steady myself with the upright waterwing on the green weed-grown patches that put the slip in the way indeed. My feet thank vandals anonymous for leaving my wetshoes in place. A last lug to the van and finally my après-nage coffee-dance warm up.