Îles d’Aix & La Rochelle, France
Daylight and darkness balance now, so near to the autumn equinox. We rise in darkness and the sun sinks into the sea far too soon, just as it has always done and will do with regularity. Life’s patterns are well established, more so than we might recognize.
Fog swallowed the world, its misty fingers painting images upon the windowpanes so we might think it had actually rained. It hid the sun but not its luminosity. The pulse of the sea was strong as we inched toward Îles d’Aix. There were no waves, no battle where wind and water meet but the pull of the moon is strong along these shores and barely had the sea rushed onto the land than it swept away again. Rise and fall, rise and fall, sixteen feet or more, the pendulum swings twice daily. Wildlife dances to this cadence reaping the bounty of the sea. Humans too have learned that when the tides fall, the table has been set. For hundreds, if not thousands of years, hunter/gatherers swarmed to the shores harvesting shellfish and crustaceans living there. Today we witnessed not a re-creation of the past but a continuation. Fishermen and families and commercial shellfish farmers too, moved outwards from the walls of the town or the edges of cliffs as if pulled by an invisible string attached to the receding waters. Oysters were pried from limestone ledges or lifted from netted platters. Shrimp were sifted from sandy shallows to be packed in most seaweed covered buckets.
Inside the fortified walls Napoleon’s memory seemed as sleepy as the town. Pastel shades of shutters seemed unwilling to let the day reach the inhabitants encased within. The leaves of plane trees (known to us as sycamore) drifted slowly to the ground reminding us of the changing of the seasons. As we strolled the island from end to end the pulses of the cultural changes here filtered through our minds.
The tide was out at La Rochelle and so were all the inhabitants. No chain barred the harbor as it had done so frequently in the past, restraining pirates and other raiders. Waves of invading forces did little to suppress the spirits of this lively town over its ten centuries of existence. In the past merchant ships came and went laden with riches, for La Rochelle discovered early the importance of international trade. Today pleasure craft of every sort crowded the entrance channel and youth, embarking on their university careers, jubilantly teemed through the streets. Rapidly the waters rose and too soon we found it was time to go.
Pastel blues and pinks painted the world as the sun exited from our view. Our vessel gently rocks upon the ocean now, and the lapping of the seas against the hull is our lullaby.
