The sea is the companion and the receiver of men. It has mood for them to fill the storehouse of the mind, perils for trial, or even for an ending, and calms for the good emblem of death. There, on the sea, is a man nearest to his own making, and in communion with that from which he came, and to which he shall return.  The sea is the matrix of creation, and we have the memory of it in our blood. There, sailing the sea, we play every part of life: control, direction, effort, fate; and there can we test ourselves and know our state. All that concerns the sea is profound and final. The sea provides visions, revelations. The sea puts ever before us those twin faces of reality: greatness and certitude; greatness stretched almost to the edge of infinity (greatness in extent, greatness in changes not to be numbered), and the certitude of a level remaining forever and standing upon the deeps.

The upright lace of Venetian facades is the best line time-alias-water has left on terra firma anywhere. Plus, there is no doubt a correspondence between - if not outright dependence on - the rectangular nature of that lace's displays - i.e., local buildings - and the anarchy of water that spurns the notion of shape. It is as though space, cognizant here more than anyplace else of its inferiority to time, answers it with the only property time doesn't possess, with beauty. And that's why water takes this answer, twists it, wallops and shreds it, but ultimately carries it by and large intact off into the Adriatic.

hearwater sighed, like a whale in the night.”

"The waves, unashamed, In difference sweet, Play glad with the breezes, Old playfellows meet; The journeying atoms, Primordial wholes, Firmly draw, firmly drive, By their animate poles.

Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form inself on the edge of consciousness.

Os surfistas dizem: concordamos totalmente, pois, o que fazemos? Estamos sempre nos insinuando nas dobras da natureza. Para nós, a natureza é um conjunto de dobras móveis. Nós nos insinuamos na dobra da onda, habitar a dobra da onda é a nossa tarefa. Habitar a dobra da onda e, com efeito, eles falam disso de modo admirável. Eles pensam, não se contentam em surfar, eles pensam o que fazem.