Road of the Solar Wind, 7: waves, with or without humans

The view of the Bay of Audierne from la Pointe de la Torche seems to me unbeatable, as magnificent a sea-and-landscape as anything I can remember seeing in Australia or New Zealand, though as Tom said, it's Atlantic blue, not Pacific, a colder, greyer, shade.  Even so. I started again, pointing the camera and blindly clicking in an attempt to record somethi8ng of its ever-changing majesty.

The trouble with all this grandeur and sweep of sand and surf is that it attracts sporty types, specifically surfers.  I'm afraid I'm about to indulge in a bit of indolent, introvert, grumpy old woman(nothing to do with age, I think I was born one), misanthropy here, so if you don't like that kind of thing look away now.

I'm sure surfing is an exhilarating, graceful, exciting and otherwise justifiable activity, when one is actually doing it.  A lot of people seem to come here to watch it and to take photos, and I can see that, properly done, it's a joy to behold and presumably even more of a joy to experience directly.  I even succumbed to trying to capture something of it with the camera myself.

However, most surfers seem to spend much of their time floundering about in the water and falling off their boards.  They spoil a perfectly good seascape, looking like squashed bugs on the camera lens.

And even more of them don't seem actually to surf at all, but simply to be into the surfing scene, and into being seen to be into the scene, and into hanging out and spending a lot of money on surf gear and clothing, most of which seems to bear scant relationship to the sport at all.  Can anyone explain to me about Fatface?  No, on second thoughts, don't bother, I am beyond any willingness to understand.

When we arrived at the headland, it was, unfortunately, at the beginning of some kind of surfers' conference or fair or similar get-together.  Large quantities of fluorescent plastic, fibreglass and lycra (or whatever substance they encase their bodies in) were in evidence,  racks of the aforesaid surf togs, barbecues and large speakers being set up, and hoards of rather less than couth specimens of manhood (mostly) set to consume these delights.

Setting off on our walk, I read a notice board which requested that visitors desist from naturism as taking one's clothes off might lead to the kind of behaviour which would be disrespectful the ecological tranquillity of the site.

In fact, believe it or not, I was inclined at first to plead the case for the surfers and their cohorts, live and let live, just because it isn't what we want to do, maybe if we were young and sporty and gregarious... That was until a large young Belgian shepherd-type dog, sans lead or any other means of control, evidently yet another snazzy must-have testosterone-boosting accessory to a group of Bermuda-wearing six-pack-flashing proto-hominids, darted growling and snarling up to Molly, who was bumbling along on her long lead in her usual helpless and hapless myopic and hard-of-hearing fashion.  We got between them and yelled at the dog and its owners, who slouched off grunting, nothing which sounded remotely like an apology or even an attempt to check the dog.

Bloody surfers, was the more polite version of my verdict on them at this point.

Anyway, I think you'll agree, it's a gorgeous bit of coast.  The shot below is a cropped detail with a glow filter and a strategic bit of retouching brush to get rid of any surfers or other extraneous matter in the scene.

~~~

(Nearly at the end of The Road now...)