Notwithstanding the jolts and the racket the wind played on the van last night, I slept like a log floating in a bath tub. When my eyes opened the curtains the armpit of Cape Cowskull was overblown with stale froth and from the high and mighty crashes storming in, there was much more to come.
Seagulls are unscrupulously urchin-rummaging the rockpools, fiercely pecking to free them, sometimes stretching to the ultimate reach from their buoyancy and, when they get lucky, take an easy ride up on the gale to drop the scale to smithereens on the rocks and gobble up the inhabitant. It must be the breezy rise as normally there are far less competitors. Sometimes two or even three wing up simultaneously and I can see them aiming for a rocky patch, but the wind is an unreliable ally. Since a month or two there is a vast beach and the sand is too soft. And of course, like in every thriving community, there are the lowlifes, gulls that wait for the manna to drop and race forward in full wing display to nick their brethren's pick.
But not only worse things happen at sea. In the foaming, almost blinding froth shed, swims a steel black cormorant, piercingly contrasting, but very much at ease waiting to swiftly dive under where a roller coaster is about to crash.
The wind blows sideways on the swell, but does not seem to change its course. Is the momentum of the water masses so powerful or could there be an invisible undercurrent?
Another bird that catches my eye as well is a young gannet, who has definitely taken this area as his hunting turf. He silhouettes articulately against the grey skies, so I can follow his acute profile in all his glides and turns, until in a sideway sweep, in graceful appetite, he folds his wings into an arrow and with light speed plunges into the brine.
And then there are the common terns, the butterflies of the sea. In their erratic flight they constantly make high pitched sounds and fling themselves with total contempt into the waves, from which they immediately fly up again. They work incredibly hard and so they should. Sometimes they seem to consume more energy than fish.
A wicked wind is changing day by day. Only yesterday I jotted down: 'an offshore wind suppresses the swell. The incoming waves do not topple, but crowd in a smooth ripple against their push. The gale sweeps the muck across the horizon and the waters attain a subdued emerald menace.'
And the day before: 'as the waves climb towards the shore they gather the sunlight in their steepening hollows and dazzle my eyes with their brilliance.'
The rain is drumming on my solar panels. It sounds like a rush of Irish adrenaline. It makes the van into a refuge, tossed by the impatience of storm, from where I can comfortably observe the wrath of the elements, my eyes met by incessant waves, always coming towards me.
My humble dwelling turns into a kitchen, sweating damp upon the windows and exhaling the exquisite scent of appetite. I stir the diced and the chopped through the minced and the bits and dip my spoon for a final sample. Then I bite off a gherkin and blow the morsels across the scald and bathe my grub in soft mayonnaise.
This evening, in a dry spell, I took a stroll to the orchid field. They do not hide in cracks and holes but brave the winds in shivers, almost lean against them. To photograph them is to breathe with the breeze and shoot them in the nick of breathlessness.
Is it always different here or do I each time paint it anew from my palette? Does time take a halt or am I hunting for the moment? Is it insight or only what I see? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.