Santa Rosa

We all went swimming at the beach, a welcome respite after a week in the dry forest. The waves were great for body-boarding, similar to Hapuna on a good day. Ellen and I were the most skilled at it and could ride the waves in until the sand. Occasionally there would be larger waves, feeling like a massage if you dived under but tumbling you head over heels if you approached incorrectly. During calm stretches we played at chicken-fight, people dove off my shoulders and we made 3-person towers up on shoulders.

When we went swimming in the morning, the wind would catch the breaking waves and spread spray in a trail behind them. The spray would catch the sunlight and refract rainbows.

The first afternoon we saw a turtle on the beach nesting, and another the next day. The first night we saw a nest hatching and followed the baby turtles to the ocean. We also saw a hatchlings, of a different species, the next night, and another the last morning.

The second evening Adam led us to the far end of the beach until we hit boulders, from which we watched the sunset.

Later that evening, after dinner, Lars, Zack, Allegra and I sat out on the beach. We went around the circle asking questions about each other, and often spun off into discussions of deep and serious topics. I felt like I grew closer to each of them, that inhibitions and barriers were lowered with the night and the honest 

conversation. It was a moment of calm and contentment.

Pura Vida  -  19/1/2014

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Turquoise waves refract golden sun

Glimmering, beckoning across the sand

A sudden chill after baked shore

The foaming waves reach out in welcome

Pulling in, through ebb and flow

A wind picks up, catching spray of breaking wave

And spreading in a fan, paints rainbows in its wake

A wall of water, and another breaks

Carrying students on a wild ride

To be repeated, laughing, tumbled

In calmer waters towers

Two, three people tall and leaps from shoulders

Friends, shared experience in work and play,

Adventures of a lifetime, exotic locales

As seabirds dive and fishes fly.

As shadows lengthen, a walk

Down stretching expanses, empty, open

And waves sweep footprint trail clean

Travels bring shells, marine colours and shapes

Sandbars at river’s mouth and hermit crabs scuttling by tidal pools,

Mother turtles on terrestrial quests, labouring to lay in sandy nests

That will be seen by moonlight

As hatchlings embark on the long return journey

Across the wide beach to reach grasping waves

And escape to long lives in the open water,

Part of a cycle as old as time.

The setting sun dyes the clouds and waves

Glowing crimson and gold, then fading purple

As the moon unveils and rises behind mountain

A silver shine washes the tranquil shore

Gentle crash of the surf lapping at the sand

A time of reflection and peace

A suspended moment as friends sit and talk

On weathered driftwood and cooling sand

Internal walls relaxed by night, open, honest

Adjacent pieces of the quilt of Ages

A perfect ending to a perfect day.