The sky is rosy with the coming sunrise. The air is full of the smell of salt. Sand crunches under your sandals. Listen to the call of seagulls and the whoosh of the waves breaking against the shore. Flights of plovers and terns flutter by.

You’ll never mistake this for the Pacific. It’s colder. Darker. Don’t be deceived by the apparently calm water. The undertow is powerful and can easily sweep you far out to sea before you can call for help.

The cold grey North Atlantic is simultaneously alluring and ominous, the ocean of my childhood. Whenever I dream of the sea, it’s the Atlantic that calls to me.

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