There is a word to describe someone who loves the sea, thalassophile. It's derived from two Greek words: thalassa, which is sea, and philia, which is one of the four different words which generally get translated into English as love.
Being a thalassophile is more than enjoying a day at the seaside and having a wee swim in the water. It is a feeling of connection, it involves a desire to be at the sea. English poet John Masefield well encapsulates it with the recurring phrase 'I must go down to the seas again' in his poem Sea-Fever.
I freely admit to being such a person. When travelling, on catching sight of the sea, there is a feeling of wellness, of peace, of desire, which rises in me. I too feel the urge to go down to the seas again, though it is not always possible to do so.
There is one beach, though, which rises above this urge and is something of a lodestone which will draw my mind towards it until the urge to visit has to be filled. Embo Beach is on the East coast of Scotland, about 40 miles above Inverness.
In relation to the rest of the world it lies just below 58 degrees North of latitude which means it is further North than the entire contiguous United States, than Moscow. It's about level with Gothenburg in Sweden. If it were not for the warming waters of the Gulf Stream, it would be a place often covered with snow and ice.
Yet, when Scotland deigns to have a summer, and the wind dies while the sun shines, there is no place like it. Being so far North there are fewer visitors to beaches of similar beauty in England.
Included are four pictures of the beach at different times of day and tide. In the first, above, you can feel the sun on your shoulders; in the second, below, the breeze of the morning can be percieved in the bending grasses; the third photo broods as the setting sun and high tide gives a feeling of immensity to the landscape; and finally the evening shore invites a walk in the liminal zone between land and sea, between night and day.
text and pictures by stuartcturnbull. pictures taken on iPhone 13 Max
