Way back in 2015, I developed a habit of posting a single image with a caption as an additional blog every Wednesday. This was to keep my creative mojo up while I was grinding through the last chunk of my Bachelors degree. I’ve decided to start it again, because I need motivation, and action comes before motivation. I need to write, put words to images, and keep my brain working creatively as well as academically (I’m now grinding through the second year of my PhD!).

So here’s the first of many Wednesday vignettes – a photo, some words, short and sweet. No April Fool’s here!

The boat is heaving. If I wasn’t so focused, I’d be heaving as well, but I’m the one leading this pelagic trip and there’s already plenty of chum in the water. The sky is a hard pale grey, darkening at the edges, the horizon vanishing behind swells. Every time we crest a wave, it’s a little closer, mistier, and I can feel the chill of rain approaching. There’s one reason we’re out here, and it’s a little black-and-white bumblebee of a bird that zips around the boat. A New Zealand storm petrel, appearing like a miracle, and vanishing in an instant. The horizon closes in. Fat cold drops begin in earnest, sizzling the surface of the water into dancing mercury. We haul in the sea anchor and make for a sheltered cove around Coppermine island, striking out into the invisible. On the back deck, we’re soaked but elated. Smiles all round from the birders. For some, that brief glimpse is enough.