North Coast Waves

I could sit all day on a lonely beach like the one we visited yesterday and watch the waves come in.

It's not just in awe at their power, nor is it the excitement of the sudden way they rise as they approach the beach, nor is it the fascination we humans have for watching something magnificent destroyed, it's that....

 ....every wave is different, and has its own character. Its height as it rises, its profile along its length, the way it rears and curves over and folds before crashing downwards into a seething welter of foam, all....

....controlled by its individual history, by the winds that created it far out in the ocean, by the distance it has travelled, and by innumerable variables as it approaches this rocky coast.

The more one watches, the more one notices - like that there is a rhythm in the sequence of waves. For a time, the sea seems almost calm, then one large breaker arrives, followed by two or three even bigger, before the size of those that follow diminishes.

I could spend all day watching the waves come in.

The islands visible along the horizon are Eigg and Muck. The ship is the Ronja Challenger.