The shape of water

Went walkabout around the Quay just before lunchtime today. It was quite busy as the season is picking up and the number of people walking aimlessly about at the waterfront is increasing now.

I stood at my door for a while until I had a suitable slot and then I slipped into the stream and joined the flow avoiding, with moderate success, some butt-ugly dog that was gasping and snorting on the end of a short leash.

On the south embankment, there is only one pub near the waterside. A decent enough sort of place: not the kind that graced the pages of Seagrum the Dwarf. Just up from there was an ambulance and a coastguard search and rescue vehicle. I assumed that someone had gone in the water earlier. Not wanting to appear too curious, I made my way further down the embankment to look at the water as it rippled vigorously in the light breeze that was blowing.

I have recently been struck by the refraction of light in water. I guess that is because I see the stuff more frequently: morning noon and night on dog walks as a minimum and plenty of other times in between.

I am not entirely sure whether it matters if the light has natural source or is man made; is night or day; sunny or overcast; early morning or as the sun goes down.

It seems, at certain times, to give the water a viscosity that goes beyond its actual physical properties.

To give shape to the water.

I am not observing this as a scientist and I am not referring to any of the physical qualities associated with the liquid. It is simply the mystery of light as it reflects and refracts on and in the water of the river.

Take some observations from today as I walked around the boat pool and along the Quayside...

A hot midday sun with some cloud and enough of a breeze to ruffle the water in the estuary, leaving the river with a surface of quicksilver.

Yet, insufficient wind to disturb the surface of the boat pool...where the surface looked like an impressionists palette....

However in the boat pool there was a shoal of young mullet milling about and occasionally making the surface bubble and roil to keep the visual momentum. You can just see the ripple of a fish rising in the "impressionists" shot.

I watched them for a while hoping to catch a good shot of the shoal itself but only managed that with a video , the single images more apparent as the shape of water than the texture of the fish.

My musings were brought to an end by an alarm on my phone to remimd me of another client call in a few minutes. I headed back home leaving the mullet to do what they do whilst above them in shoals, the humans swirled around and around.