Here I am, drawn away again to the sea, sitting on a blustery coastal beach, watching a pod of young surfers.

Ignoring the signs declaring ‘dangerous beach’ and prohibiting swimming due to ‘strong currents’, they gaggle delightedly down the stairs, throwing clothes to the side and jumping into their wetsuits. Full of the yelp and bluster of being fourteen, they sprint haphazardly towards the beach – hardly able to contain their joy, their hunger, for the ocean. They gallop and canter across the sand, pausing at an obliging sandhill to try their hand at surfing down the dune. Carelessly, they throw their bodies and boards down the cliff of sand, again and again and even again – tussling like puppies at play.

Suddenly, one of them tires of the sandhill and turns towards the sea. The others instinctively follow. Running gleefully towards the rip, they throw themselves into it, one after another after another. They fight against the tide to get into the deep, paddling with frantic excitement into the mouth of the churning maelstrom. SMASH! They feel the majesty of the ocean, sense its awesome power. Exhilarated, they fling themselves into its chaos.

Bobbing up and down, they respond with long-practised skill to each wave as it comes. The glassy blue speedhumps, they allow themselves to slide over. Occasionally, with the small crests of foam, they let themselves be picked up and tossed lightly backwards. And then the massive fists of ocean power roar right up to them. I watch, breathless as, kneeling on their boards, they arch their backs like little black caterpillars and plunge their heads beneath the breaking foam. My heart skips a beat as they are lost in the swirling torrent. Then, a long second later, they rise – almost balletically – like the little Mermaid on the rock, before shaking the water vigorously from their salty manes.

And they keep riding the rip out, deeper and deeper, til they get to the place where the really big waves are crashing – the ones whose roar and thunder sends pulses of fear and awe through my body, even as I sit safely on the shore. And then, somehow, in the heartbeat of a second, they have turned on their boards, and I gasp as I realise they are hoping to catch this one – to fling themselves completely at its mercy.

There is a moment when they are shrouded in a blizzard of crashing whiteness. The arc and body of the waves completely covers them, and I think they’re lost in its terrifying, seething, mass. But then, they emerge, a tiny black dot amidst the snowstorm of spray, hurtling forward with all the speed and majesty of the ocean. Completely surrendered to its power. Pulsing forward.

And I wonder at the strange wisdom that these reckless kids have found. The wisdom of knowing how not to fight the ocean. Of accepting, even embracing their smallness. The wisdom of becoming immersed, submitting themselves to each peak and trough, each wipeout. The strange interplay between agency and surrender. The acceptance of the ocean’s uncontrollability – even the delight in it. How they dance so playfully when they are so completely beyond their depth, in the midst of something they absolutely cannot control.