Missing the Sea

by Kay Donnelly--

 

 

When I look out my bedroom window, I can see a tiny sliver of the River Blackwater, just below the bridge that crosses from Co. Cork to Co. Waterford. It’s about 2km away but it is the only bit of water I can see during this period of cocooning. The river is only three minutes from my door, as it makes its way to the sea along the quays to the harbour and broadens out into Youghal Bay. I have always been drawn to the sea, even as a young child, and all my favourite spots are by the river or the sea.

This is what I miss most during these testing times, my contact with sea. My childhood days were spent playing in the small beach located on either side of the Lifeboat House. A sheltered spot, with walls all around, it was a safe haven for mothers to bring their children and let them run wild, while they chatted and did their knitting. Occasionally the peace would be broken when the Lifeboat was called out. Everyone rushed to get a good view as the boat was launched in the old-fashioned way of easing it down the solid track structure that ran from the Lifeboat house into the sea. We used those timber tracks to play shop and do balancing acts in quieter times.

When we got a bit older, about ten or so, we were able to venture a little farther on our own. When the tide was out, you could walk from the Mall all the ways out to Green Hole, the small beach opposite the Walter Raleigh Hotel. From there you could climb the rocks and search rock pools for crabs and starfish and stony cobblers. Our mothers were not one bit happy when we arrived back some days with buckets full of crabs which we insisted on bringing home. We always put seaweed in the buckets, and the morning after the crabs would have climbed out and be all around the garden.

As teenagers, we graduated to the ‘Far-off Strand’. Our favourite spot was in front of Perks, where there was a great spot for going in for a dip and lying out in the sun, which we seemed to have shone all day, until we got hungry enough to go home.

Getting married and having a car took me even farther out, to Clay Castle, and this is probably the spot that I miss most. Every fine day, winter or summer I think, I have spent time out there, either walking on the beach or sitting on a bench gazing into the blue, with Capel Island and Knockadoon Point breaking the sharp line of the horizon, a book lying idle on my lap.

Now I am confined to a patch of green grass and two cement paths when I want some fresh air and exercise. I have discovered that I have nine different kinds of daffodils and eight different kinds of Fuchsias and about a hundred different kind of weeds. I have to walk around the garden 45 times to get a half-hour walk. What a change from walking from my house, down along the old quays, up the Lighthouse Hill to Moll Goggins Corner and turning back to see the Knockmealdown Mountains in the distance, off to the north, and the Ferry Point across in Co. Waterford, stretching its long arm out into the river.

When we had rough tides during the winter, I captured the waves breaking on the shore in a video on my camera. I watch it now and look forward to the day when I will be able to re-establish my contact with what I miss most during this Pandemic… The sight, the smell and the spray of the sea at Youghal Bay.