124 



THE OPAL SEA 



A danger- 

 ous sea. 



outlook is anything but assuring. The ridges 

 appear enormous, the horizon instead of being 

 flat is as ragged as a sky line of snow-clad 

 Alps, and the spray seems to reach to the very 

 zenith — white spray leaping upward at a cold, 

 white sky. When the swimmer has swung 

 down into a wave hollow he seems walled with 

 blue-green water, and when he dives through 

 the crest and comes out on the sloping back 

 he seems to see legions of waves hurrying to- 

 ward him from every point of the compass. It 

 is a wearying, worrying sea. The waves never 

 cease, the crest must be continually avoided; 

 and ever and anon the unexpected cross wave 

 breaks over the swimmer's head with a wild 

 rush. If he comes through alive he never 

 forgets to his dying day the look of that foam- 

 ing sea. 



White caps are accompaniments of the larger 

 as well as the shorter waves. With a strong 

 wind both waves and crests increase in size, 

 but there are fewer of them. The water seems 

 to swing in broader and longer ridges and there 

 is no great regularity in the wave forms. Ow- 

 ing to flaws in the wind cross waves are set 

 in motion, toils of water are pitched here and 

 there at odd angles, the sea becomes " lumpy '* 

 in spots and " full of holes " in other places. 



Waves with 

 a half gale. 



