Wonders revealed by staring at ocean

I am writing to you from heaven.

What heaven is this? All the souls lifting in the heat, fluttering back to their memorial benches when the ocean coolth slips over the big, round heads.

The air gathers, bunches, twists and turns upwards as it hits these cracked, baked dolerite crags, with their stunning stand-alone pillars.

At 70m up, it reaches the cliff edge, speeds up as it goes over and then into a downdraft.

It’s all about pressure changing, but this specific phenomena is the old hang glider pilot’s nightmare. That downdraft has caused many a crash.

Not today, though as I peer into the blue-green-yellow waters pushing laconically to the shore, they flop and froth, their pitching lips tessellated by the on-shore (shorewards) hand of the little girl, the eternal high pressure system wrought by the sixth La Nina in a row.

I am actually looking for sharks. I want to see them on my terms, not buzzing me or banging me off my board.

Where am I? I am standing on the mighty mount of our Gxarha headland.

Then I see something so extraordinary, my peanut brain does not at first comprehend what is before my eyes.

At this height, on this clear day, Google says, I can see 30km out to sea.

So the ocean before me is ruffled and dark blue, but close to the horizon the surface is silvery and smooth, lake-like.

The illusion crashes down like the surf below with its deep ironstone open base chords and some guitar screeching.

This is how dolerite sounds. I know because I once hung out here “cleaning” lines probably never to be climbed again.

This involves dislodging loose blocks. They thunder down, exploding and ripping up the place. Not proud of that.

Ah, my gosh! I am actually looking at the great, greasy Agulhas current as it shrieks southwards.

“It was fast, so fast, six, seven knots, 27, 28 degrees!” boomed the local ski boat commodore in the queue at my local supermarket yesterday. Such a fun moment. Very Gonubie.

I jump onto Windy.com, seek out the layer for currents, and wragtig! The Agulhas is literally snogging the coastline.

Any closer and there would be no room for those upstart little offshore drifts, little currents which break away from the mother lode and head back to Durban.

Known as the longshore drift, they bring our warm water and used to arrive with our west winds.

All the ocean’s major currents are connected. They control our weather, they frame our lives.

The Agulhas actually hooks up with the Gulf Stream off south and north America and can influence weather in Europe.

In our fast warming oceans, which have sponged up a lot of the heat generated by our CO2-polluted atmosphere, currents slow down.

The endgame here, if or when they stop, will be catastrophic.

Nolan van Wyk, 68, has watched the sea for 56 years, first as a grom surfer and now as an oceanator.

He says that a few days ago, the Agulhas was flowing so hot and close that a marlin, a typical tropical game fish that lives in the torrent, popped up next to a ski boat only three or four kilometres from shore.

Other Agulhas game fish are being caught.

“Zip” as the ocean community knows him, lived for many years in Quigney’s Seaview Terrace which towers over the ocean.

Passionate oceanators love staring at the ocean.

After surfing and fishing for 55 years, he says: “I see currents, you have a calm patch or a different colour.

“Darker is warmer, lighter is inshore when the eastwind undertow has kicked up (weed, shells and rollies — dislodged oysters cleaned by bumping around on the ocean floor) onto the shoreline.

“If you see ripples it means nothing’s happening, no current.”

My surfski paddling friend says there have been days when one side of the paddle is still, cooler water, and the other is the hot Agulhas.

This would be thermocline, the separation of cold and warm water. The Agulhas creates a distinct layer above the cooler water and has a distinct edge at times.

Like today.

I watch the sun swing overhead. At 2pm, the Agulhas current slips over the horizon. The moment is over.

I get the call. Hetty, my bike, is ready, says the technician — abbreviated in SA to “Tiffy” — Barry Canning who lives in the hamlet of Gxarha (Morgan Bay) near the river.

I pay on my phone while sitting above “The Carnival is Over”, a climb I led 23 years ago.

My boiled eggs and potatoes are klapped along with copious cups of mud from my flask.

I should drink old-farm Trekker and stop desecrating these fancy ground coffees, I muse.

It’s time to head back from these beautifully loved, cursed, high points of memories. I think I will get a Coke.

I drift past another headland where I curse Natal.

This was the name given by the first to climb the line. Natal is a slightly overhanging crack graded 19. It is intimidating.

In 1991, I wanted to lead it so bad. I ate a lot of carrots, ran far, did a lot of pull-ups.

Then I rode down from Johannesburg and got on it.

The crux, or hardest part, was horrible: You are in a slight overhang, toes on tenuous grips, as you lock your fingers into the crack, one hand over the other, while also putting in protection.

I take a fall or two, but finally get through.

Later I discovered the first ascent was done on a top rope — a really naff style of leading a climb where the climber has a rope above them all the way.

When you lead it properly, the point of protection is below you and when you fall you fly past it until the rope, actually a fancy elastic band, catches you on your last piece of protection. Yay, it did not pop.

That gets to be exciting.

The village is neat. There are signs to miscreant dog owners to pick up their pets’ poop.

Renovation is always happening in these places — a grass cutter, lathe, chainsaw — but I love it all.

We have splendour, natural incredibleness in our little corner of the world.

Can we relish it without ripping in with hooks, spears and blades?

Can we fish with GoPros? Can we sit still for one minute and look, really look, at nature. Something will happen.

Today a jackal buzzard hangs in the updraft like a sculpture, white feathers spread across its undercarriage, black wingtips and rusty tail.

An edgy gem, scanning, hunting, suspended like my disbelief.

The tech bros at Spotify have held me today. The soundtrack is echoing piano and cello strings.

Time to go. I have held myself in this space of nothingness for as long as my anxiety-addled, cellphone-addicted brain can manage.

With help from my friend, we managed to hold out in silence at the edge of the river here — nature bathing — for all of 10 minutes.

Try it. Hilarious.

I turn on my timekeeper to earn some Vitality points.

And I walk, then ride home on a perfect bike after a perfect day.

• I had a peek at the Morgan Bay Hotel. Wow, that place is cool. Absolute gem.