Heart at Sea Level
Sometimes when you look closely at the landscape, themes start to occur. There is a love of Lundy by many people, but have you ever looked for hearts in the Lundy landscape?
If you have seen this heart shaped feature in the cliffs, it would have been whilst circling Lundy by boat. A fracture in the granite, shaped uncannily like a heart, opens briefly in the cliff face.
The heart becomes visible only when the body is positioned in certain ways. It is not something you walk past. From land, it is not visible. From the water, it opens up. A love for Lundy – a metaphor in the cliffs.
I have been lucky enough to circle the island several times, Not by swimming or kayak either. Always with someone else at the helm. I took this photograph from either the MS Oldenburg or from the Obsession dive boat. Both offer round-island trips, which I love. Each journey shifts perspective. You see places that you have only heard about in the Marisco Tavern. Montagu Steps, Pilots Quay, North Light Landing, and Devils Slide are all visible from the sea. The cliffs are higher, the seabirds louder, its a similar feeling I get when swimming on Lundy. Being at sea level offers a whole new perspective.
On one such trip, we noticed a huge length of discarded fishing rope draped across the North End. It looked like bunting after a party. Later, after the seabird season had ended, it was carefully removed by the island’s assistant warden. I gathered up the discarded rope and I am presently weaving it into baskets. Rope that proved dangerous to wildlife is now having a new life. Baskets shaped by tide and time, reworked by hand. You can buy these at the Lundy Craft Fayres.
Hearts revealed by the tide
When you start looking for hearts in the Lundy landscape you find them in the most unlikely places. Just the other day, walking on the beach at low tide, I found another heart.
It was a Neap tide, the sea drawn further back than usual, exposing more of the shoreline. I was walking slowly, watching the ground rather than the horizon. A low tide walk requires a different type of attention from a swim. The body adjusts — careful footing, shifting sands, awareness of what the sea has just relinquished.
The retreating tide shows new things.
As I walked, a stone appeared. Large and weighty, shaped like a heart. Like the fracture in the cliff, it revealed itself only because I was looking. Had I been striding ahead, scanning the distance, or swimming I would have missed it.
A photograph of the stone made a perfect image for a Valentine’s card — a small offering from the shore. Seeing something in the landscape and sharing it with another feels like a quiet extension of that moment of attention.
Hearts from Crafting
Walking across Lundy creates a slow pressing into the landscape. Needle felting is also a slow process of pressing. Taking wool from the Lundy flock, compacting it through repeated, careful punching. A Form emerges and then a view that is etched into many of the mind of a Lundy visitor. The view of the Landing Bay, seen from the Ugly. Much of my crafting is inspired by Lundy.
Walking, moving and crafting all embodied acts.
My PostSense letterbox project invited others to share what Lundy meant to them through their senses. These included sounds, textures, smells, and memories. Love for a place is rarely abstract. It is felt through the body. You can see all the postcards sent sharing love of Lundy in the PostSense blog.
Personal Hearts on Lundy
Hearts often come to mind on Lundy. This week, we had a couple choosing to celebrate their wedding anniversary on Lundy, sharing photos of their wedding day. Regularly, I meet couples who first met here, who honeymooned here, who even got married here. Only recently we had a couple flying the vicar on to the Island, to re-new their wedding vows. Many visitors return year after year to mark anniversaries. I also meet those whose love is quieter. These are people who return simply because the island draws them back.
Would I have gathered these moments together had it not been the week of Valentine’s? Would I have noticed their association so clearly.
Writing a blog on the topic crossed my mind. I had just been reading Glimmers – tiny moments to transform your life. Would this thought have occurred otherwise? A book that I received for Valentines Day.
The body carries season, mood, memory. February tuned me towards the shape of hearts, affection sharpened perception.
One might ask, where is the heart of Lundy?
It is not a single location — not the village, not the beach, not a favourite rock or path. The heart is not fixed at all. It emerges at certain angles, at certain tides, through certain gestures. The heart of Lundy is the rhythm created when body, tide, weather and attention meet. A moment of alignment.
A Haiku: Hearts in the Lundy landscape
To end a Haiku….
Heart shaped by the tide
visible only at sea —
the body must turn
Postcript – Chris McEvoy a returning visitor to Lundy posted this photo of a Heart in the Wall at Tibbets.
Reference
Narain, N., and Phillips, K. N., (2026). Glimmers. Harlow, England: Penguin Books.