by I’m staring at a seahorse. At the small spines on his head. Crown spiky. Like an underwater unicorn. Such scenes are always precious, but this one feels unique because I am convinced to myself that he is giving birth. I watch them every day, these bony little fish, tails curling twigs, laughing delicately, performing their sunrise greetings (my heart!). This little guy has angles like this and that and bubbles, or maybe thousands of tiny baby seahorses that are released from their pouches, rise around him. It’s hard to tell, but who needs proof? The possibility is quite magical. Life is fairy tale-special. If you choose to see it that way.
We are in northern Greece, the seahorses and I, a few miles southeast of Preveza, in the Ionian sea. But you could also find them in your own watery backyard – even in London. hippocampus hippocampus breeding in the outer Thames, and along the south coast of England.
When I think of the thousands of miles I’ve flown, the most life-changing and heart-enlarging experiences have come in Britain.
I sailed to Greece, kind of by accident, a few years back. I left my job in London, and went on a small boat with a loose plan to navigate in Britain. But at Land’s End, I was caught up in my own adventure and sailed across the channel to France. A few years later, I landed in Greece. No regrets, of course. What struck me was the thrill of exploration, the cultural appeal of foreign lands. But when I think of the thousands of miles I’ve flown, the most life-changing and heart-enlarging experiences have come in Britain. It often takes leaving home to really see it. How wonderful, I remember, the shores of Britain. The Atlantic, the North and the seas of Ireland. The smell of seaweed, seal colonies. I run the tides. How I miss a tide!
I will always remember waking up, in new-found freedom, skirting the bucolic south-west coast of England at a snail’s pace. The drifting landscapes, Dorset chalk hills and beautiful bays, the drama of Durdle Door. But the shifting seas were my destiny as I headed back. The clarity of the water increases, changing colors from sedimentary greens and browns in the east to deep blues in the West Country.
By the time I crossed Lyme Bay, the 40-mile gateway between Dorset and Devon, I was open-mouthed to find the turquoise waters lapped by the white beaches of Salcombe. Shockingly beautiful. Certainly not Britain, I remember thinking. But attitude is a strange thing. We associate such scenes with places far from home and we have many in the UK too. I felt a rush of childhood memories, of running into cold cold water from the silky whites of Calgary Mills beach in the Western Isles.
Back down south, the Jurassic coast attracts visitors during the day to its casually scattered beaches with beautiful fossils of ammonites. But at night, too, it is a place of wonder, often alive with light. Where the Lym runs into the sea, you can see a small clam-like shellfish – a common piddock – glistening in the dark. Bioluminescent bivalves. The Romans liked them, judging by Pliny’s accounts of hedonistic parties. At late-night festivals, people took pedagogues out of the rocks, covering each other with their sparkling juice – “fire breathing” fun.
I stayed at sea – no shiny shellfish for me – but as I sailed across Lyme Bay as darkness fell, I was faced with something even more special. Suddenly, I saw bright streaks of light rushing towards me. Dolphins, glowing green with bioluminescence, flashing like tornadoes under the boat, wake up behind us as starry as the sky above.
I’ll always remember waking up, newfound freedom, cruising the bucolic south west coast of England at a snail’s pace
Not long after, I had the most special wildlife encounter of my life, just five miles south of Dartmouth. I took two friends out for a sunset sail, and we were joined by common dolphins. I often enjoyed their playful company, so my friends insisted on watching them archery while I led. I then realized that there were half a dozen on either side of my boat, Jesus, and scores behind him. I looked around. Next to it, and as far as I can see were dorsal fins. Dolphins everywhere! Superpod – perhaps in the thousands of animals, and impossible to count.
There were so many around the boat that they were in rows, weaving, dipping, bowing to each other. We lost our wits completely, the three of us pushing hysterically. And the dolphins seemed to be responding to our screams with exciting jumps. In the distance, there was somersaulting. I could hardly believe my eyes, I saw one near the boat driving itself on its back. On his back! It was harder to know which group – human or cetacean – was happier.
Eventually, as the sun dipped below the horizon, the dolphins, in their hundreds, swam farther and faster, back to their lives offshore, leaving us behind. Dolphins have been with me ever since, on the Atlantic coast, and very rarely in the Mediterranean. It’s never special. But that experience, just outside of Dartmouth, was extraordinary once in a lifetime.
To be held in this calm cold sea and seagulls wheeling above. It was a reminder of the other life I made
Not that I’m complaining, frolicking out here on the sunny seas of Greece. That’s where I was at the end of the second lock, sitting in my dinghy when the call came. The kind that slows down time. My father, taken away in an ambulance. We were lucky, though. It would be recovered. A few days later, I was in Scotland waiting for him to return from hospital.
I would stay for a year, eternally grateful for the opportunity to help him get back to himself. And for a precious time with him – the longest since I left home at 19. However, shivering with a particularly Scottish drizzle, hoping for green clouds above, I thought of my boat in the Greece and I thought how I would adapt.
Life throws us in unexpected directions. I turned to the sea. I was lucky. My father lives in a beautiful small town on the west bank of the Clyde – Dunomhain, once a popular “doon the water” place, with its Victorian quay, the sweeping west bay, valleys and hills. Where I rushed in and out on week visits before, I now had time to get to know the place and I found a lot to say; the rhythms of the ferry going and going, the porpoises in the bay and eyes in the air. Gantocks lighthouse, just offshore, often shrouded in fog. The good ol’ fish and chips and cheeky dog walkers I’d get to know on my daily freezing swim. Oh yes. I was one of those swimmers. I certainly wasn’t a fan of the cold water, I hadn’t been in the Clyde since I was young. I arrived in April, when it was the coldest – around 7C. Baltic. But this was the only sea I had. I went. I lived one minute.
Soon, however, I was obsessed. I loved everything about it. The thrill. The hot coffee after. Reflective self-awareness – that warmth in your heart. And thanks – how amazing our bodies are. The sense of achievement.
Related: Review of The Half Bird by Susan Smillie – a less common life
In the end, I found that I needed it, time that was just me. To be held in this calm cold sea and seagulls wheeling above. It was a reminder of the other life I made. Back living in my father’s house, I found the same feeling of independence, excitement and wonder that I found going out on my boat again. Perspective. Turning the ordinary into something special. Making something yours, anywhere. Finding adventure.
The bad weather no longer worried me. If it was raining or snowing, I would love it more, running into the winter sea alone, feeling very daring. The audience is not an adjective that chose. “Do you want me?” they shouted.
“It’s wet in the sea, anyway,” I’d call back, confirming their suspicions that I was crazy.
If it was snowing, I jumped out of bed in a state of immense excitement, frozen feet running among soft flakes. “The water is warm in comparison!” I want to reassure my dad. I hardly missed a day that whole year. The sun shone from time to time, and such days were all the more special because of their rarity.
One hot evening at low tide, I cycled towards the village of Innellan. As the sun set, I walked the intertidal zone, to the edge of the water where Atlantic seals pull out. A world and a half. Distant and undisturbed, I folded my clothes and placed them on a rock. Quietly, I slipped into the water and bathed in a forest of slippery kelp, listening to the seals singing. I watched the sea return to claim its territory. The boulders are shrinking, the land is disappearing, the mammals are hunting. Water world again. Truly magical.
• Susan Smillie is the author of The Half Bird (Michael Joseph, £16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
