After a close shave in Wexford Harbour, it seemed like the tide had granted me a reprieve.
Once, many years ago, I was rowing across Wexford Harbour when I was caught in a tide rip that almost pulled my boat out into the Irish Sea and away from any rescue. Fortunately, I had learnt to row across the flow and not against it and, after a long and exhausting pull, the tide turned and I finally made it to safety. Since then, I have had a healthy respect for the tide and love to watch it ebb and flow.
The turn of the tide is one of those immutable things in life. Like night following day, summer fading to autumn, middle age after youth, I know it will always come. I cannot stop its steady progress. It never lets me down. Ebb and flow, fall and rise, twice a day, unfailing, dependable, predictable. It carries my boat along or stops it in its tracks. It pushes up the beach, slowly erasing my footprints. It leaves behind rich offerings. A spiny spider crab that once crept about the deep seabed, a heap of oyster shells dredged from the sandbanks offshore or the bleached skull of a seabird that did not survive the winter.
Read the full article on The Irish Times website
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