Lands Edge, A Coastal Memoir - Tim Winton

Radio 4's book of the week last week was 'Lands Edge, A Coastal Memoir' by Tim Winton. I caught just 5 minutes of it on wednesday but heard a powerful reasoning for the psychological draw of the sea and particularly in this case, free-diving (free-diving is just holding your breath and diving as far and as long as you can, unaided); 

"… Free-diving in the open ocean is mostly a form of forgetting… a form of desertion, retreat, hermitage, a stepping aside from terrestrial problems to be absorbed into the long moment. ..

The sea is immense, potent, trackless but above all, neutral. I used to console myself that if the sea drowned me, a shark took me or a blue ringed octopus or sea wasp or stone fish had its impersonal way, then at least there was no ill will involved.

Of all the water occupations, free-diving is the most forgetful. You turn your back to the land, the sun and slide down to where all sound is flattened to chirps and rumbles. The deeper you dive, the heavier is the blanket that insulates you. You wilfully forget to breath. You sidestep the impulse and your thinking thins out to the moment at hand.

It’s a religious feeling; on the sea-bed or gliding mid-water with everything sharp in focus and my body aching with pleasant urge and hunger. I understand the Christian mystics for moments at a time. I too feel swallowed, miniscule, ready. The diver, like the monk however contemplates on borrowed time; sooner or later you have the surface to return to."


SW