Crab-Crawling Sideways

Photo from author.

Blue diamonds shimmered from the ocean’s surface, so bright was the early morning sun.

The warming sand soon became warming rock beneath our flip-flopped feet. Traipsing along the shallow tide pools pocketed below the cliffside, many a crab did scramble — sideways, hurried and nervous.

I was nervous, too.

My two companions led the way, walking upon the outstretched rocks, which within minutes would veer to the right and spill onto a landscape usually out of sight from any beach walkers behind us.

This was a route I’ve hiked before, but I remembered the mental struggle. The wide flat slab of gray rock jettisoned out into the crashy blue as the rising sun dried up the last roll of tide.

The out-of-sight part was where my buried fear began to roll beneath. Trepidation and why-did-I-say-yes-to-this thoughts churned in the back of my mind.

I remembered this place. This place of panic. The rocky flats stretched out ahead. The jagged cliffs roughly carved by the onshore winds from the Pacific rose sharply to our right and blocked out the sky. At eye level, about 20 meters ahead towards the sapphire sea, a few local fisherman tossed their lines from clifftops while others prowled for lobsters. The white spray of waves smashed the cliffs below their feet. Straight ahead awaited the part…