In the Silence of the Night I hear the Sea

The still water of the ‘claires’, with its mirror-like reflections, echoes the silence of the night, where only the sea can be heard faintly, rhythmically lapping on the shore beyond the rows of cabins. The street lamps create eerie shadows and warm pools of light in the sleeping landscape.

If the beauty of the île d’Oléron is wonderous in the daytime, it doesn’t fall short in the night hours either. The ambiance, as the oyster ports pause from the activity of the day, is just as particular, hauntingly calm. That evening there wasn’t a breath of wind as I wandered on the broken oyster shell paths, the crunch of my footsteps the only addition to the sound of the soft roll of the waves. The little oyster village slept and even the cries of the gulls were silent.