Half way through the morning ....

Half way through the morning I shift my position.  The hard granite setts are beginning to numb my sitting bones and my body needs a stretch.  Perched on the edge of the harbour wall, my sketchbook resting on my knee and with a steep drop to the sea below, I am beginning to tire.  But I can start to feel the sun on my back and its gradual warmth encourages me to continue with my drawing.

The seagulls, wheeling over and around Port Seton’s fishing trawlers, fill the air with piercing shrieks and calls.  They have been my constant companions since I stationed myself here.  I have set myself the seemingly impossible task of drawing a heap of discarded trawling paraphernalia.  The tangled mesh of fishing nets, once brightly coloured now muted by constant washing through oceans of seawater, lie in piles against the sea wall.  Woven through them, in intricate strands, are floating necklaces of rubber discs threaded on heavy gauge wires, with rusting padlocks and cleats.  There are orange and green buoys, chains and thick ropes, all tangled together.  They will never be teased apart to trawl and catch fish again.

Along the quayside there are several trawlers, secured to the dockside with heavy ropes looped through huge iron rings.  They are all tied with a simple efficient knot.  The oily decks are a jumble of smelly nets, coils of rope and lobster pots, jerry cans, fish boxes of blue and orange.  The wheelhouses sit below a series of radio masts, and flags flutter from cabling running along the vessels’ network of wires.  These sturdy little boats are tough and workmanlike, equipped to be tossed around by heavy seas, but now they sit quiet and safe within the harbour walls.

 I return to my sketchbook.  It is a challenge to translate my surroundings on to sheets of creamy white cartridge paper using pencil, a withy and Indian ink.  The task is to look, to see, to understand and then to try and represent the spirit of this place and the integrity of its fishing fleet.