The ocean

Right, so it's been almost a month since I decided to keep an ACTIVE blog; but sadly, I've been way too lazy and haven't added any new entries - although I haven't given up yet. I have about 3 drafts floating around, which I hope to start posting over the next few days, and have also began a small little writing exercise which involves writing (spurting out in a constant stream) ever morning, whatever nonsense comes to mind. I am really enjoying this process and quite surprised by the (creative yet perverse) material that I come up with; I'm sure that a psychoanalyst would uncover a lot of dark fantasies/fears/secrets from these passages and maybe I shouldn't be putting them online, but saying that, there is something quite therapeutic in posting these entries openly.

http://mkwritingeverymorning.blogspot.com.au/

Today though, I would like to write a little bit about the ocean. I have always found watching and listening to the ocean; particularly the wild deep-blue ocean, to be a very deep, reflective, liberating and often cathartic experience. There's just something overpowering about an endless volume of water that makes me feel so irrelevant (in a good way), and last week, on my summer holiday at the Victorian coast, I managed to have three of these strong experiences. 

The first encounter was at Cape Patterson. On a super windy day I took my baby girl, who at the time was sound asleep in a harness attached onto me, on a walk over rocks and rock-pools to the end point of the cape (a long triangular shaped group of rocks, stretching a 100mt or so, from the shore into the ocean). It took about 30 min to negotiate a path, as I couldn't see where I was stepping because of Soleil resting on my torso, and the strong winds were really messing with my balance - but in a funny way, having my daughter with me made this risky pastime of jumping from rock to rock all the more special. Apart from the two of us there weren't any other souls on the cape, except for some large black birds who were conjugating in a ritualistic type circle, and I guess, some marine life nestled in-between the rocks. The wind was really fierce at the tip and the waves dramatically danced around, and crashed into rocks, only a few meters from where we were standing. At the end of the walk, I took a few minutes to simply stare out to the deep blue, endless ocean; which has always had this fantastic way of numbing all my thoughts and commanding my complete attention. After a few minutes, my gaze began to slowly drift further and further out, and I found myself pondering what it would be like to live in the ocean, and to be an ocean? This whole process felt like a meditation, as at some point I found that I unconsciously began reflecting on my own existence (past/present/future) in a much more detached way than I usually would. I also find the sound of the ocean very much contributes to the meditation; it's something very close to white noise, but has a very lulling rhythm to it. I guess in many ways, the immense material volume of the ocean very much is reflected in it's sound, which is immense with all frequencies present; slowly oscillating and modulating. 

The next ocean experience was at Wilsons Promontory's Squeaky beach.  The beach and ocean were surprisingly empty, with barely anyone around except for a few boogie boarders. The overall landscape was quite surreal;  the sand was unusually white, the water was a crystal clear turquoise, and some large rock islands sat in the ocean with a sort of primordial presence.  It was a fairly cold day and the water was pretty cold as well, but as the surf were good and strong I decided to jump in and swim through/under/over waves;  a joy i have cherished since being a young boy. I ended up spending a couple of hours on and off,  just diving under the waves whilst they crash, and floating up and over their undulating ridges. This took a fair bit of energy to keep up, but I felt very relaxed  (and sort of cleansed) afterwards. I also had a great time watching my daughter play, apart from some gentle bay experiences, it was baby Soleil's first real (conscious) experience with a wild surf beach, and she was really digging it. She took her tiny little steps along the sand, ever so slowly making her way to the surf. I could only imagine what it would feel like, to encounter this for the first time - magnificent stuff.

My third ocean encounter was viewing the waves smash against the large, pointy, granite rock formations, which sat in the ocean, about 10-15mt from the cliffs at Cape Woolamai, Phillip Island.
Watching the water being sucked towards the cliff was quite a surreal and almost hypnotic experience. As these huge swells and waves appeared to move in slow motion towards the rocks and cliff, then with a forceful bang, exploded on the rock, shooting spray 10mt up in the air. At times I felt quite dizzy looking at it all. The intense winds also added a turbulence to this whole situation. as they seemed to forever draw me into the action below. I also found the wind  quite deafening; to the point where the sound of the ocean morphed in and out of the sound of the wind directly hitting the diaphragm of my eardrum. This got me thinking about how we treat wind in sound recording. So often recordists go to great lengths to prevent wind from hitting the diaphragm, but I think this is untrue to the actual physical experience of listening in the wind. Sure, the wind that hits our eardrum directly is much less disruptive to wind hitting the diaphragm of a microphone, but it is still a valid disruption.