At the Ocean's Edge

Some places don't fight the ocean. They simply learn to live beside it.

From a distance, it seems as if the town ends right at the edge of the ocean. A handful of streets, a few roundabouts, neat little houses — and then, without warning, black volcanic rocks with pools built between them. They looked as though they had always belonged there, as if people had simply adapted the landscape rather than reshaped it.

From above, almost the entire town lay in plain sight.

I happened to visit Porto Moniz in early October, and the sun never broke through the clouds that day.

Under overcast skies, the place looked nothing like the familiar tourist photographs. The lava rocks appeared almost black, while the Atlantic never stopped roaring against the shore.

Yet despite the wind and the waves, there was none of the harshness the dark cliffs and the constant sound of the ocean seemed to promise. Instead, what stayed with me was the calm, unhurried rhythm of a small coastal town that had long since learned to live beside the Atlantic.

Madeira, Portugal.
October, 2017.
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