Seapoint By Hokusai

Very stormy, so down to Seapoint to see what the sea was up to. Quite a lot, but I hadn't expected to encounter any swimmers. I noticed these men heading for the concrete shelter on the far side of the Martello Tower. They had been in and had just got dressed, were sipping tea and staring out to sea, into the cauldron of smashing and roiling waves, the swirl of grey-green and and webby-white underbellies, the fleshiness of seawater making love to itself.

They told me someone was out there, and I spotted him eventually, a little black dot that resolved itself into a blue dot (his cap) then, eventually, a ruddy grey-haired man, coming in very cautiously, judging the precise moment to grab hold of the iron rail and wade in, confettied with spume thick as snow, like someone emerging from a Hokusai painting (minus Mt. Fuji, though if you squint really hard Howth Head is ghosting up there on the horizon and will do nicely as a stand-in).

So another joined the three men under the concrete roof, toweling himself and staring out to sea.