Winter seas

 

I always thought people who went swimming in a near-freezing sea were cracked, but then I tried it.

That’s me and the Dunfanaghy Dippers last week off Portnablaugh. There’s an exhilarating thrill and addiction to it. The water isn’t that much colder than the Monterey Bay. When our skin turns red, we call it “The Wild Atlantic Tan.” 

Today, there was too much winter so no one swam. 

Last week I also learned that early spring is the beginning of seaweed foraging season. 

The Irish have a long tradition of using seaweed for food, medicine, and fertilizer. Naturally, there are many words related to seaweeds.

Here’s a list from @TheIrishFor (link)

1. Feamainn - the general term for seaweed.

2. Cadamán - seaweed found on the upper part of the beach.

3. Barrchonlach - seaweed found on the upper part of the beach, also,

4. Bodóg - a tuft of seaweed. This also can mean a heifer.

5. Cáithleach - light seaweed (but can also mean phlegm).

6. Lóch - light seaweed or chaff.

7. Ceilp - that variety that is called ‘kelp’ in English.

8. Lústrach - withered seaweed. This can also mean obsequious.

9. Múrach - brittle seaweed or fine clay.

10. Carraigín - that variety that is called carrageen moss in English.

11. Rúscán - a variety of seaweed. This can also mean a strip of bark.

12. Raibh - floating seaweed.

13. Scotach - tufted seaweed.

14. Soipíneach - this is the Irish word for nest but can also mean a heap of seaweed.

15. Sraoilleach - scrappy, raggy growth.

16. Racálach - cast-up seaweed.

17. Turscar - also, cast-up seaweed.

18. Féar Muir - literally, sea grass.

19. Fear gliomach - long ribbons of it.

20. Duileasc - dulse in English.

21. Rapán - another name for dulse.

22. Creathnach - yet another name for dulse… which also means terrifying.

23. Leathach - a kind of broad seaweed. Leathach also means two-parted.

24. Dúlamán - another name for it made popular by Clannad. Thanks to @TheLuckyHand for that one.

25. Fuip - means a whip or a tangly variety of seaweed. Adorably, fuipín is the word for a puffin chick.

Like many traditions that faded in the 1970s, there’s been a reclamation. Above, my friend collects peppered dilisk, the truffle of the sea. You clip it off so it continues to grow and can eat it right off the rock, which I did. Delish. Another thing I would have thought was cracked. Here’s an Irish Times article about Ireland and its sea vegetables.

The seaweed that looks like black garbage bags is the one I collected the most of. My friend called it something that sounded like “slah-oke” but you can hear the three dialects of “sleabhac” at this site. Most Americans would know it by its Japanese name, nori.

The word sleabhac (nori, laver, sloke) also refers to the resilient mix of tough dermal bone and keratinized cells that form the inside of an animal horn, the part that gives a horn its strength. Because of the potency of seaweed, the word can also refer to a mysterious otherworldly being. It’s used in the phrase meaning, “May the devil take him.” Expressions meaning “let him go to the devil”, or “he can go to blazes”, literally translates as “let him have the seaweed”. To “offer my two-cents worth” is literally “put my oar into the seaweed.” The quarrelling over seaweed rights was just as fractious as encroachment on a turf patch and is reflected in the proverb meaning, “I’m okay, let the guy have the seaweed.” (link)

This is “rack.” Which is used in the bath.

It only took a few hours in the food dryer to preserve what I had collected. I don’t eat much of it, so this should last me the year. But I’ll go back to that beach and collect a few hot bath’s worth of rack. A tonic for my Atlantic tan.

Winter solstice sun