Surf Man Still

Click if you want to enlarge . He looks so cool . He must have been freezing .

Facing the wall . In the rock cave . CatCalls: Yesterday Alice bit me then .....

View from the rock cave

Sitting facing out to sea in one direction this is the view ( dog optional ), of the rock cave CatCalls: Yesterday Alice bit me then .....

Surf Man King Edwards Bay

Probably not the most brilliant bit of surfing this unknown man has ever done but I'm very happy that Ive finally learned how to post a video clip .

And I'm impressed by anyone who can get into the North Sea in February , wet suit or no . I've been in in August at the end of a red hot day and I can tell you its enough to freeze your toes off .

Yesterday Alice bit me then .....

....she ate the valentine chocolates while we were out . Definitely something going on there then .

The shells are symbolic of yesterday . A long story . On Tuesday , early , a man was huddled on the beach against the cliff face , partly concealed in a semi cave of rocks . We spied his dog first , intent on digging a large hole and then sitting in it . The impression was that despite the early morning chill , at 8 am , man and dog had been there some time , sitting there and the dog was bored and looking to entertain itself it .

Initially as we came down the steps to the beach I thought the dog was alone . the beach was deserted and , just as when I saw the baby seal , anything like this fills me with a sense of foreboding . Why is a dog wearing a collar alone on the beach . Where is the owner ? Is he/ she collapsed somewhere , or worse , gone into the sea ?

There have been people here who have abandoned their clothes and their lives and walked in , their bodies showing up weeks later .

Then suddenly there he was , red gore tex , sitting on the rocks , almost in a cave , deep in thought . We continued on our usual path which gave him a wide berth but allowed us to see that he was simply there , sitting , whilst the dog dug and dug , for perhaps the thirty minutes it took us to walk the length of the beach and back , then along the concrete walkway and round the promenade as we do each morning . He was still in situ on our return , as if he hadn't moved .

As I worked at home that day , finding myself wondering if he was ok , I returned to the beach at four pm with Alice , and found him gone , and no pile of clothes and no forsaken dog staring out to sea . I went to where he had sat and Alice dug a little where the dog had dug and I sat where he had sat , saw the roll up he had smoked and the pattern made of the shells on a rock .

I wondered what he was thinking ....and how his story unfolded .

And yesterday , I sat in the same spot myself , distressed by Alice 's bite , and looked again at the shells and wondered how it is to walk into the sea .

To be continued .