Angel On My Shoulder by Clare Sull

Angel On My Shoulder

It was actually a few years ago that I was there for the first time, maybe even four.

It gave me that island fever, despite that we were coming into winter.

Memories of Indonesia and waves and culture and island life and simplicity. Even though the two places are totally not the same. 

It was just beautiful. Kind of unlike anywhere I had been before. The air was tepid with salt around midday, the sun high enough to tan the skin, the nights were cool and lush. 

There exists no development, no exploitation, it is rugged, it feels wild. 

The days were spent hunting swell, eating local cuisines and drinking wine. We found some waves and saw some even better ones. I was reminded of the humble nature of the ocean, or of the ‘sea’ as I am often told.

Surfing a left slab on a shortish sized single fin, might do that to you, well anyway, that and washing high and dry after being pulled by a surge to a rock shelf, certainly did. 

But gosh, I wasn’t complaining.

Had we found the next nirvana?

I am being conscious to not use names here, as this place does not deserve to be spoiled by the techno hounds of geo-tagging modern society. 

This place has a reverence, if you make it there and find what it is capable of you’re lucky, if you don’t, well I guess it just isn’t meant to be.  

We went back, some years later. Not a thing had changed. Only that this time we had more time, we were kitted with a quiver of dreams, a small sized van to weather the weather and rest our weary bones, but the waves, they just didn’t come. 

What we got instead was something different to surfing, we found a new pursuit so unparalleled. We got a flat, waveless, swell-less, albeit tropical coloured sea. 

We got this for one month. We immersed ourselves and we indulged in the primal ways of feeding and thriving. 

I fell in love with the sea all over again but for completely different reasons. Finding different levels of joy in something you call home reignites the romance and the love story unfolds once more.

The angel on my shoulder has taught me to reminisce but not dwell on what we don’t have, but perhaps just relish in the things that we do. 

 Pictures by @alessio_alessandri and @claresull