Ocean Jewels of Winter

The Atlantic is, as many a sailor over as many centuries will attest, an unforgiving mistress. A tempestuous and roiling body of water, rarely at rest and even then her waves crest and roll. When the Atlantic howls with a furied storm, the waves crash resoundingly onto the shoreline, frothing and rolling, tossing flotsam and driftwood about like leaves falling in the autumn winds.

As the ocean settles from a tempest and the seas fall away and ease off again, one notices a beautiful sight. For despite her anger and tantrum, the oceans swells leave what I have come to call the Jewels of Winter...rocks covered in thick ice. Sometimes sparkling, at other times a dull pearl awaiting the hand to polish.

These jewels are fleeting for the most part. Delicate lights, fragile, yet hopeful. They drape over the rocks or rest like a blanket of pearls...soon to be taken back by the ocean, claimed as if such jewels were a taunt of the mistress of the seas. But as they stand in the bright light of day winking and sparkling, one cannot help but catch a breath and take a picture.