Fas-Sea-Nation

Fun at Sea

During my holidays, I had a chance to enjoy recreational time at the ocean. I spent a few days having sunset walks on the beach with the dogs and I got to explore some rock pools and amazing creatures inhabiting them.

A few years ago when I was a high school student, I was the leader of our school Enviro Club and we would study and prepare for Enviro Quizzes that was held to compete against other schools in the area as well as schools in Durban. On one occasion, our club, The Eagle-Crest Enviro Club won against other local clubs and each member received a first addition “Beach Book” by Jerry Cosnell as a prize.  This is a little beach book that gives you detailed images, names and information about the creatures and plants living in KZN beaches. This little book came in very handy during my long walks on the beach.

The Beach Book by Jerry Cosnell

For a few weeks now we have been having a red tide, which is caused by a cold Cape current pushing up the coast that causes our sub-tropical, warm water aquatic life to die and wash up ashore. This causes all sorts of weird and wonderful objects to wash up, from different weeds, to crustaceous creatures and all sorts of shells. On one occasion, I noticed a pitch black little egg shaped pebble lying on the beach, perfectly oval in shape and upon picking it up, I noticed that it felt feather light in my hand, almost as if it was a piece of plastic or charcoal.

Lightweight pebble believed to be Jet

The highlight of my holiday was definitely my second deep sea fishing trip. During this trip, I felt more relaxed and I was more capable of being independent when reeling in the fish and baiting the hooks opposed to my first trip where I felt a little dumb as it was my first time catching game fish and using a big reel. This time around, I was once again the only woman aboard and I had to bear with all the jokes about wives, dumb blondes and women, but my revenge came quick for as soon as the engines turned off, the rocking motion of the boat added some funny colours to the gents’ faces leaving me as the only one not feeding the fish. ‘lekker lag kom lekker huil’

The ocean being a big part of my holiday, I decided to pay a tribute to it by painting a large blue wave to be hung in my Brother’s room. This 800mm by 800mm acrylic painting took me only a half a day to complete as I did it with quite a loose hand. This has opened the door to a new exploration. I will be painting more oceanic paintings as I live so close to the sea and it makes up quite a large part of my life.