The Pass, 2019.
120cm square, acrylic and silica painting on stretched canvas.
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Do you ever dream of flying? Have you sailed to wild places? I dreamed that this is how a reef pass would look from above and this is what I painted. It reminded me of our Pacific sailing adventures. I can't wait to get back on the boat and back on the water, but in the meantime, I can reminisce and dream...⠀
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You have to time a reef pass right in a yacht. You can't get the tide wrong or you could be trying to thrash your way through a tiny passage while the whole wide ocean is roaring in the other way. In some of the atoll reef passes in the Tuamotus, the current belts in and out at up to 7kts, with standing waves of several metres. The passes are sometimes only tens of metres wide and the reef waits like teeth on either side, hungry to tear strips out of the hull of any unwary or unwitting sailors. ⠀
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Once you're inside the reef barrier though, the water is calm and teems with wildlife. A rainbow of coral and industrious little fish await you as you dip your body beneath the surface of the bath-warm turquoise waters. If the atolls are well-established, you can dinghy or swim ashore to linger in the shade of a palm tree fluttering in the light breeze, marvel at the bright whiteness of the sand between your toes and the shimmering dance of the sunlight on the picture-perfect lagoon. ⠀
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Later, the sun sets quickly out of a pink sky into an indigo sea and the stars sparkle overhead like a million fireflies. ⠀
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Lobster and fresh mahi-mahi for supper with a crisp, chilled glass of Pouilly Fumé that you bought for a king's ransom in French Polynesia somewhere, then grilled fresh pineapple; later rum cocktails and someone picks up the guitar to gently play and sing in the dark, with the gentle kiss of the ocean against the hull, ready to rock you asleep. ⠀
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Close your eyes and take my hand. Let me take you there with me. ⠀