White Strand is actually a peaceful backyard of the so dreaded Malbay. It is not hard to imagine the Spanish galleons in 1588 being torn to shreds by the white-crested reefs and the abundant tidal teeth. Even the lobster boats manoeuvre within the roaring boomers with utmost care. I find it fun to roller-coaster in the wash, but several times escaped by the skin of my suit from being hemmed in by a sudden ridge.
For the past few evenings I have been taking strolls. Hitherto this was rather seldom. There was nothing for me to find and the beaten path, a grassy highway, only flattened my feet. A sudden impulse started me off and various breakneck descends to jagged layers of rock challenged my dare. This goes very different from the boulders at Fanore. Due to the tilted sheets you walk in slant continually and it is hard not to stray towards the water. But here it also goes that there are several pathways and the only art is to follow them by foot. The profile of the shore is both in horizontal and vertical respect of utmost articulation. At times you got to get up on all fours, then again off sheer cliffs like an ibex. And that ain't always easy for a lobster. Then slabs have been broken down from the layers. The largest inlet is 'Kieran's hole', where a rusty ladder reminds one of a more elegant era and which is the favourite haunt for the local youth, practically inaccessible for adults. Further on diverse narrow and wider 'channels', rock corridors sprung by crevices in the live rock, cut through the foot shore. They end in large hoards of rounded boulders and some have dug in deep.
It was at such an arch that I saw the water storming in. I could hear the gargantuan breath by the rattle and drone of the rushed-in and sucked-out stones. But what made me breathless were the airbrushed shapes thrown forward by the toppling rushes of the waves. This was a Jackson Pollock action painting unparalleled. Actually I wasn't really sorry not having brought a camera. It would have been to dark for freeze frames anyway and moreover I could capture the bubblescapes on my retina by blinking my eyes. Owing to Mr. Rorschach we know to put observed configurations into the perspective of personal projections, but that even made me enjoy more the chandeliers that were flung at my feet. Truly a royal delight.
When I returned by the oh so trodden road everything came to a fit. The waterside I had gotten to know in the past three years in all its intimate coves and varying tides from the shoreline like pieces of a puzzle now fell into a familiar ensemble. From now on I always know my whereabouts.