2021, Oil on Board, 54cm x 70cm
The swimming mascot took 31:02 to swim the annual Yacht inn swim from Newlyn Wall to the Jubilee Pool – a 1,300m sprint. Faster than a few of the entrants!
There is an ancient copse of trees marked on maps of the Carrick Roads. Sailors for centuries have used it as a transit line to aid their safe passage into the harbour at Falmouth. Disco in Cornwall shows imaginary transit lines and shipwrecks piled up one on top of the other.
Ivor Cutler describing a walk in the Scottish country side “look there’s a thistle, (pause) look there’s another thistle.’ - My late Mother and I always found that funny to the point of bursting. Now when I see a thistle I think of her. On voyage to the Isle of Scilly I boarded my friends boat ‘Marie’, and with much delight noticed that painted on her bow was a thistle.
The long lost land of Lyonesse now sunk beneath the sea between St Michaels Mount and the Isle of Scilly.
If the Map of Cornwall resembles a foot then I live near the toes.
In the summer we swim from Battery Rocks to Newlyn harbour wall and back. Someone will say “to the wall and back?” and we will all reply “Yup!”
http://payneshurvell.com/2018/01/arca-project-london/
I walked the old pilgrim way from Mousehole to Lamorna, which loops back through the farm above the cliffs. Walking past a look out, a quarry, and willow bushes for making lobster pots, Celtic crosses, and a shed full of cows.
We swam out of the cove and across to the lighthouse. The sea was deep in places but exceptionally clear. As we approached the island we saw a ladder that we could use to climb up out of the sea onto the island. We scrambled up onto the rocks thickly covered in long seaweed, and turned to face the direction in which we had swum and saw three large seals staring back at us. We swam back to shore flanked by the seals. One was a light grey dappled colour and swam with us back to the shallows of the beach at north cliffs.
I'm one of those people who swim in the sea all year round. I used to keep tidal flow charts in the car so I would know where it would be safest to swim at any given place, time and tide.
