By Catrina Dawn Conway
Friday 3rd April
“Calm sea
The sail softly swells and the wave is gentle…
The wind leaves the sailors to their dreams”
~ At sea, en route for Sark (Victor Hugo, 1859)
Hugo’s words ring true as I lean my head against the boat’s window, which is stained with salt and rain. Against a grey sky, the jade-green sea is broken by lines of soft white foam, its gentle waves urging me toward the Isle of Sark.
At only 3 miles long and 1.5 miles wide, this tiny Channel Island is little known to the rest of the world. I am on my way there because of Victor Hugo, the French poet and novelist, who lived 19 years in exile on the Channel Islands. He spent most of this time on Guernsey, where he wrote many of his great novels. However, he also visited Guernsey’s smaller neighbour, Sark, and was inspired by its wild landscape.
Half an hour after the boat has departed from Guernsey, Sark emerges from the horizon, mist enclosing her like two loving hands. I am struck by her presence; a shy wisdom hangs about her as she looms over the rock-speckled sea. As we approach, colours bloom from her silhouette into a medley of emerald grass, topaz lichen, granite grey, and slate black. Waves sob at her base and gulls stand guard. Her steep edges seem inconquerable. Sea-sickness washes through my body.
As we dock at Maseline Harbour, on Sark’s east coast, with a gentle thump, I think about Hugo arriving all those years before. He would have arrived at Havre Gosselin, on the island’s west side, and would have climbed a ladder up the ragged cliff edge.
“The entrance of Havre Gosselin is wild. The sea is strewn with blocks like monsters drinking…”
~ “1859 – Serk”, loc. cit., p920
I have Maseline’s slippery and weathered stone steps to tackle. As I climb them, tiny tufts of moss fall onto me, carried upon the breeze. I then take a rickety tractor to the top of the island, known as the ‘toast rack’ (I assume for its rows of seats that arrange the people like slices of bread!). As I am rocked right and left, I become spellbound by what I see. Bluebells are sprinkled like cosmic dust along the steep slopes either side of the track; mist slivers around verdant, moss-cloaked trees; and the deliciously fresh scent of wild garlic wiggles through air. I breathe in deep.
After the toast rack drops me off at the village, I begin to walk to my bed & breakfast, Sue’s B&B, located on the west of the island. The village is seemingly empty apart from those that arrived on the boat with me. We walk in silence, people trailing off into homes and down hidden paths. Soon, it is only me left, traipsing through a cloud forest.
After settling into my B&B, I set out for a twilight walk. It is thrilling. Gothic silhouettes of pines bend inland, subject to the will of wind, as if struck in time by some ancient tempest. Dark figures of crumbling gravestones watch over a church. The gloaming light fades fast. Small stars pierce through sky, smoky with cloud and a faraway fire. The air is cold and numbs my ears. I see no one.
Then, I return to my room for the night. The wind whispers outside my window. As my mind drifts into dreams, one of Hugo’s poems echoes in the darkness:
“Do you grasp why everything gives voice?
Listen carefully. It is because the wind
And waves, the flames, trees, reeds
And rocks, everything is alive!”
~ Les Contemplations, Book VI (1856)
Saturday 4th April
“She does not yield her charms immediately, this delightful island. She simpers a little as we arrive. She seems to say, ‘Don’t look at me.’ And then there’s a burst of sunshine piercing the warm fine rain. A gentle ‘no’ with a gentle smile.”
~ Ibid., p920
This burst of sunshine falls upon me at breakfast the next morning when a ray finally breaks through the veil of cloud. I’m relieved because today I am going on a walk with Jan Guy, a tour guide with expertise in local history. I meet her outside Caragh Chocolates, the island’s very own chocolatier. Jan is warm with an air of someone whose approval I immediately seek. We discuss Victor Hugo and Sark over a coffee and complimentary chocolate.
Hugo was thought to have visited Sark two or three times during his Channel Island exile. He described it as “a sort of fairy castle, full of wonders” and it is believed that his visits here inspired many poems in his collection Les Chansons des rues et des bois (The Songs of the streets and the woods) (1865) and his epic seafaring novel Les Travailleurs de la mer (The Toilers of the Sea) (1866), which I have been reading. We trail through documents and images, including a photograph of a small shipwreck from the time a film crew came to the island to make an adaptation of Toilers in 1936.
Energized, Jan and I set off, first paying a visit to La Coupée, one of the island’s most iconic sites. It is a narrow isthmus connecting Big Sark with Little Sark. We stand on slightly higher ground, overlooking it.
As we gaze out at the narrow bridge, merely a slither on a map but epic and commanding in real life, Jan tells me how Hugo described it as a hyphen. “Isn’t that brilliant?” she beams. I marvel at this observation and wonder what it reminds me of. The cinch in the middle of the infinity sign, perhaps.
Past the Dixcart Hotel, where Hugo stayed, we approach Gouliot Headland, a wildflower-dappled RAMSAR site that looks out onto Brecqhou Island and the wide sea. Mustard-coloured gorse quivers and blankets of bluebells dance in the breeze. It is beautiful and windy and vast.
We sit on a bench and Jan tells me how she used to have her own boat, which she took out onto the water below. I ask how Hugo knew so much about seafaring (Toilers is intricately detailed), and she explains that he used to spend a lot of time with fishermen, befriending them and going out with them on their boats. I silently wish I had the chance to venture out onto the sea, but Sark’s tourism season hasn’t fully commenced yet, and the boat tours are yet to begin.
Under a radiant sun, we make our way to L’Ecluse where a passageway is shrouded by tangled vegetation. Sycamores weep with lichen and blackthorn froths. Dainty petals land on our shoulders as Jan leads me through the passage to a stunning precipice overlooking Les Autelets (the Little Altars) – two imposing rocks jutting out of the waves. These rocks are thought to have inspired the formation featured in Toilers – the deadly Douvres. For Hugo, these rocks embody nature’s full wrath, a predator of the elements, where Toilers’ protagonist Gilliatt suffers at the hands of the violent sea and the tumultuous weather:
“The Douvres – those granite dragons lying in ambush in the open sea… their hospitality was that of the wild beast who welcomes the traveller to his den with open jaws.”
~ The Toilers of the Sea, p199 (1866)
I peer over the edge, at the newly-arrived guillemots that use Les Autelets as a nesting site. I wonder, on a day like this, with joyously bright sky above and rippling ribbons of sea below, how such a sight could ever inspire anything other than admiration.
Soon after Les Autelets, Jan and I walk back to the village and part ways. Time has flown and it is now late afternoon. On my walk back to my B&B, down tree-lined paths haloed by lowering sun, I consider this perplexing duality of nature… So far, I have only seen one side of Sark that Hugo wrote about.
Sunday 5th April
It’s my last day on Sark, so I decide to trek down to Creux Harbour to finish reading The Toilers of the Sea. It is a muted sort of day, warm but not sunny, and my coat feels heavy on my shoulders. I trudge down the hill’s path, steeped by the same rich greenery that greeted me upon arrival. I reach the bottom and slip through the tunnel to the harbour. I notice three figures dragging kayaks out toward the water and realise I have already met these people: Louise, one of Sark’s many talented artists, alongside Edd, Sark’s stargazing guide, and Kayleigh, who has recently moved to Sark to drive the island’s horse and carriages.
“Oh!” Louise exclaims. “What are you doing down here?”
“I’ve come down here to read my book, maybe do a bit of writing,” I reply.
“We’re just off to do some kayaking through the caves,” Edd pipes in. “Would you like to join us?”
I’m caught off guard. I look at the three of them, then down at my jeans, hoodie, and book in hand. This wasn’t part of the plan. “Okay!” I reply.
“Love that attitude!” Kayleigh laughs, and we all giggle about the impulsivity of such a trip.
I am nervous. I’m not very strong, and reading Hugo’s account of the sea in Toilers doesn’t make me terribly eager to be on it in a tiny boat. However, I want to see Sark from the water just as Hugo did.
The group set me up with a kayak and soon I am dragging it out onto the water, the bottom of my jeans already soaked. We paddle out past Creux Harbour’s walls and onto open sea. The world feels immense, and cold, and wondrous. The sea is serene and so clear that you can see the land lying under it. I let my fingers caress the surface as gentle waves flow beneath me. I do my best to keep up with Louise, Edd, and Kayleigh, but I cannot stop looking around. From here, Sark is the most earthly of beings, so much so that she does not seem real. To be in the presence of such natural grandeur is astounding. She lies like a goddess sleeping. All sheer rock and silent strength.
The nature of the water changes as we paddle between Sark’s cliff edge and some rocks; the current rages and swirls and shoves me into the sides of the land. But the elements do not feel angry, nor harsh; they simply feel charged with energy that does not know where to go. Charged with a force much greater than me.
Edd leads us to an opening in the cliffside – the Cathedral Cave. He tells us that when the sunlight reaches into it at just the right time, it becomes gloriously illuminated. I think about the cave scene in Toilers:
“This wonderful network of living fire… It was a palace of wonders, in which death sat for ever smiling yet sad.”
~ The Toilers of the Sea, pp185–6 (1866)
Now, though, there is no fire. Just darkness. Perhaps a little death sitting in a corner too. For a moment, I am left alone in the cave. I hear concealed waves raging in the distant gloom, angry at their entrapment in this earthly prison. A primal fear in my heart, that I had long forgotten I could feel, arises.
“No wild beast can equal the sea in mangling its prey. The waves are full of talons. The wind bites, the billows devour, the waves are like ravening jaws…”
~ The Toilers of the Sea, p155 (1866)
We move onward and soon we are gathered around a small hole within a rock. Edd puts his finger to his lips. We listen.
There is breathing.
A heavy, deep intake of breath followed by a large release of air. It comes straight from the rock.
“That’s the sea dragon,” he whispers. “She sleeps just behind this rock.”
I have no reason to not believe him. The breathing is undeniable. I shudder in awe.
“It’s just air being drawn in and then pushed back out by this gap,” Edd shatters my illusions.
The rest of the group begin to paddle back in the direction of the harbour, but I linger with the breathing dragon for a second longer, thanking her for her magic.
On the way back, the group decides to take the more open route, avoiding the rougher passageways we braved on the way out. An oystercatcher scudders across the sea’s surface, right near me. As I take it all in, the open sea on one side, Sark on the other, I revel at the mystical beauty and violence of this place. How Hugo managed to capture those forces in his words. How I have now experienced them. My arms are heavy and my skin hot from kayaking in my hoodie. My jeans are soaked through. My heart is so happy.
As we return to the harbour, a fishing boat trundles past. Edd, now back on solid ground, kindly helps bring my kayak up the slipway so I can avoid getting more water on my jeans. Not that it matters.
“Thank you,” I whisper again. To Edd, Louise, Kayleigh. Jan, Victor Hugo, Sark.
By four o’clock, it is time for the boat to take me away from Sark and back to Guernsey. My body feels shifted into a state of being that will stay with me for a long time.
On the boat, I take a seat outside. I have in my hands my copy of Toilers along with a bunch of wild garlic. I’ve decided to follow what the island’s legend says:
As you stand on the boat leaving Sark, be sure to throw a handful of wildflowers into the sea. If you do this, Sark will always call you back.
I would like to be called back.
The boat departs with a shudder. Sark transforms back into the patchwork of colours and depths that I saw upon arrival, but that I now know much better. I breathe in.
Toss the flowers into the sea.
They disappear immediately into the fathomless blue. Sark becomes smaller and smaller.
“Thoughts of exile are gone, everywhere is home to us,
Once we’ve taken a walk in the fields
Amongst the flowers, deep in sunshine and song”
~ Oeuvres poétiques, loc. cit., pp257–8
I gaze upon the island that inspired one of literature’s greats. She is a spring day, a love poem, and a wild, hungry beast. She is both earthfast and otherworldly. The waves worship her like a shrine. She is a true toiler of the sea.
And for a moment, so am I.
—-
Catrina Dawn Conway is a writer and poet, currently studying an MA in Nature and Travel Writing at Bath Spa University and working as the Editorial Assistant for DK Travel. She writes to capture the feeling of wonder she experiences when spending time in the natural world. She views her writing as a creation of her very own magic spells, conjuring up the beauty of the universe to share with readers. More of her writing can be found on her Substack @Catrina Dawn Conway & Instagram @catrina.dawn.conway
List of References
“Calm sea
The sail softly swells and the wave is gentle…
The wind leaves the sailors to their dreams”
~ At sea, en route for Sark (Victor Hugo, 1859)
Victor Hugo, Oeuvres poétiques, III, Éditions de la Pléiade, Gallimard, Paris, 1974 p. 255.
***
“The entrance of Havre Gosselin is wild. The sea is strewn with blocks like monsters drinking… The two vertical walls have here and there sorts of natural ledges, round or bulbous, which resemble birds’ nests…”
Notes on his visit to Sark in 1859, Voyages et excursions, pp. 919–21, “1859 – Serk”, p. 921. Collection “Bouquins”, Robert Laffont, 1985.
***
“Do you grasp why everything gives voice?
Listen carefully. It is because the wind
And waves, the flames, trees, reeds
And rocks, everything is alive!”
Les Contemplations, Book VI. xxvi, lines 44–51.
***
“She does not yield her charms immediately, this delightful island. She simpers a little as we arrive. She seems to say, ‘Don’t look at me.’ And then there’s a burst of sunshine piercing the warm fine rain. A gentle ‘no’ with a gentle smile.”
“1859 – Serk”, loc. cit., p. 920.
***
“A sort of fairy castle full of wonders”
In a letter to André van Hasselt, 18th August 1852, in Pouchain, p. 143.
***
“The Douvres – those granite dragons lying in ambush in the open sea… their hospitality was that of the wild beast who welcomes the traveller to his den with open jaws.”
The Toilers of the Sea, p. 199 (1866).
***
“This wonderful network of living fire… It was a palace of wonders, in which death sat for ever smiling yet sad.”
The Toilers of the Sea, p. 185–6 (1866).
***
“No wild beast can equal the sea in mangling its prey. The waves are full of talons. The wind bites, the billows devour, the waves are like ravening jaws…”
The Toilers of the Sea, p. 155 (1866).
***
“Thoughts of exile are gone, everywhere is home to us,
Once we’ve taken a walk in the fields
Amongst the flowers, deep in sunshine and song”
Oeuvres poétiques, loc. cit., pp. 257–8.
***
Translations taken from Victor Hugo, Visitor to Sark by Cedric May (illustrations by Paul Killick) (2005). Gateway Publishing Limited.
