The Singing Gate

with thanks to Chris P

herring gull - rain - cloud - ore stone - hopes nose - 

sea - wave - water droplet - camera - me - you

posted by david

The Inner Quarry

 

Graham Kenyan -" I do a lot of diving, a lot of scuba diving. Erm, well, it can be very, very good, the problem with Berry Head, is because it sticks out so much you get a lot of currents going round Berry Head itself, so it's quite dangerous, it's very deep, because it sticks out so far, er what is it about three hundred feet high, the cliffs, and the water it just drops straight off so you've got about twenty to thirty metres of water straight off the edge of the rocks, erm, what's it like, it looks like, underneath it looks like it does above, it's very rocky, leading down onto like a pebbly, sandy bottom. It's the currents really, so you can do a drift dive, if the boat will drop you at one end and you'll just get pulled all the way round and it'll pick you up at the other side. Er, but lots and lots of fishing line nets, things like that which are obviously quite dangerous for anybody diving off there, I wouldn't dive, well you've got the old quarry down there, have you ever gone down there? It's quite a walk down, it's worth a visit, erm, and they've got, well have a walk around the old quarry, it's lovely as long as you can cope with the walk back.

Incidents? At Berry Head, no not really, there have been some, there was a young lad lost there about two years ago, er when his parents where, they were diving off round the edge of Berry head, the engine cut out on the boat and they couldn't get to him the parents, the son was diving with the father and the father got back to the boat and because the wind and what have you pulls the boat away, the lad was still in the water and they got separated and he went down and they found him two or three days later, not good no, it happens sometimes.

Alexandra Brown -Have you found anything whilst diving?

Graham Kenyan - Off of berry Head? No, no. Fish! Dinner, crabs, lobsters, er, you get monk-fish, bass, Pollock, mackerel, er, loads and loads of different types of fish, er you get scallops, erm, anything you want for dinner really I suppose. There's loads of little, you do sometimes if you come away from Berry Head a little bit, er, in the shallower areas you get what they call sea grass and it's only something that happens during the seasons, during the summer season, the sea grass grows and that's where seahorses live, so they'll connect themselves to the seagrass, if you're really careful you can see them when you're snorkelling as well, you'll find tiny little seahorses connected to the seagrass, but that only lasts till about September that disappears then ad then they go off, I don't know where they go, deeper water I suppose."

Text by Graham Kenyan,
Interview & transcript by Alexandra Brown,
Post by Anna Keleher
Links http://www.englishrivierageopark.org.uk/section_sub.cfm?section=18&sub=134 

The Gullemot that could talk

  

                                 THE GUILLEMOT THAT COULD TALK 

An Artist one day went in search of a guillemot that could talk. She came to a fishing village, and said to the people there: 

"I am looking for a guillemot that can talk" and one of the women there said:
"To-morrow I will go with you, and I will be a guide for you, because I know the way." 

Next morning when they awoke, those two women set off together. They jumped in a kayak and paddled off around the head. They came to the foot of that bird cliff, and when they arrived at the foot and looked up, it was a mightily big bird cliff.

"Now where is that guillemot, I wonder?" said the artist. She had hardly spoken, when the woman who was her guide said:
"Here, here is the nest of that guillemot bird." 

And it came out of the nest that bird, and went to the side of the cliff and stared down at the kayaks, stretching its body to make it very long. And sitting up there, it said quite clearly:

"This, I think must be that artist woman, who has come to hear a guillemot speak" 

Story adapted by Anna from an original folk tale by Knud Rasmussen, 1921 
http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/inu/eft/eft55.htm