All at sea…

Who was it who wrote that he must go down to the seas again?

Whoever it was I know how he feels. I can’t go long without needing the sight, smell, and sound of the sea – the tang of the wind on my lips and the feeling of spray against my skin. I wasn’t born by the sea, but you are never far from the sea in this island nation of ours, we are all seafarers at heart. Even Church Flatts farm in Derbyshire, the spot that’s furthest from the sea in the UK, is only seventy miles from the mean low water line at Fosdyke Wash in Lincolnshire.

I doubt that there are too many people in the UK who haven’t seen the sea, but the million people who live in Urumqi in Northwest China, the world's most landlocked city, are over 1500 miles from the Bay of Bengal, their nearest coastline.

I wonder how many of them have ever even seen the sea, and what must it be like to have never experienced the excitementof a day’s picnic on a sunny beach, or a sand-blown winter’s beach walk in a howling wind? How would it be to have only experienced the sea through television, film, video, or worse still, not at all?

For me that couldn’t be an option - the sea is always with me no matter where I am. I need its physicality to feel complete.

Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps I need a wild call and a clear call, the call of the running tide, a windy day, and the flung spray, and the sound of the sea -gulls crying. Maybe I need the white clouds flying to keep my feet firmly on the ground, and the experience of the sea to stop me from becoming being all at sea.

Maybe I need its constant consistency and pattern, the knowing that it’s always there, to keep me sane.

Maybe.