I’ve loved the ocean for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure exactly why. Perhaps it’s because, unlike Ma Nature’s more wispy basic elements like suffering or air, the sea is a solid, tangible viscera that literally connects everything on the planet to everything else, the true blue blood that humbles king and fool alike. It’s pretty cool, if you think about it. You can wade into the water at Cape Point and feel the shock of the same primal current that sends sparks flying in soaked spring break bikini bottoms at Fort Lauderdale, that fizzes at the shins of a spearfisherman in Papa New Guinea’s thinning shallows, or lights up the eyes of some ageing Asian couple sifting through the pebbles of memory on Brighton Beach. It’s cold and cruel and vast and sweet, and whenever I venture out into the waves it makes me feel that I am plugging into some greater collective fluid Flesh, home and whole in the spilled alphabet soup of existence.
Having grown up in South Africa’s landlocked Highveld, we would head south every summer to visit my grandparents down in Cape Town. Most of our time there would be spent on Bloubergstrand’s beach. While my sister joined other kids in building sand castles or picking up shells or whatever the hell kids did in those days, I would fuck around for hours on my own in the icy Atlantic swell, more blissed out than I’ve ever been and not caring to wonder why. My mom, who was terrified of the water and couldn’t swim, often had to send in a lifeguard to lean on me when it was time to go. I hated those bastards. I would sit sulking and shivering in the backseat of our beat-up Mazda on the way back while she smoked furiously, trying to veil the troubled gaze that pierced the rear-view mirror. After practically falling asleep at the dinner table, I would sneak into my grandpa’s bed early every morning where we paged through some ancient encyclopaedia on fish species and marine life, oohing and aahing over the miracle of maps and pictures, before getting into the car and repeating the entire exercise again. Gramps was convinced that I would grow up to become an ichthyologist. My gran solemnly observed that my eyes were turning bluer by the day. For once in my life I was truly happy, and I don’t mind admitting it.
As the years progressed, however, that sweet surge of innocence gradually drowned in a flood of booze, blood, cum and tears. Go figure. Time saw me turning inward to the shipwrecks of the heart, going after sleeker fish in coves and caverns best left to the Tides. I became a drifter and a dreamer, a hustler and a whore, but whatever far-flung hovel I came to call home, I always made sure my back was somewhere snug to the sea, ready to square off face to face when the Pirates came a-knockin’.
A few years ago, I was walking on my lonesome across the rocks at Three Anchor Bay, where, in the sixties, the wild young vamp of Afrikaans poetry famously waded into the waves in the dead of night and found a way to drown herself. It was a crisp winter morning and I had a nice buzz of whiskey and weed going as I was idly scanning the shore for some last remnant of her tortured soul, willing to settle for a wing or a prayer. The going got tougher as I approached the beach where a dense throng of rubbish lay scattered along the water’s edge, a bright rim of plastic bile brought on by the purge of the passing storm. Slipping on condoms, nappies and slimy soda bottles, I suddenly felt sick. From somewhere deep below, the slow burn of buried hippie rage suddenly roared to life and I stood there cursing Ingrid and the world and the inhumanity of man out loud in the muck like a goddamn idiot.
Things went south from there. I fought a losing battle with the demons of adulting at the time, and the ocean - that single silver thread that barely kept me tied to the sense of bliss and belonging I’ve known in my summers as a child - seemed to be my only refuge. Whether I drove out to Scarborough or Simon’s Town, Kommetjie or Kalk Bay, my eye was now fixed solely on the stock standard crow’s nest of garbage lining every beach, something I’d never really noticed before. It was like a strange and unnerving fit of OCD. In my frail state of mind I somehow took it all extremely personally, fuming at the filthy rot of civilization encroaching on my fragile slice of rapidly passing paradise.
Before you could say “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”, I was lost in my own torturous brand of backwater environmentalism. Instead of joining Greenpeace or bombing China, I withdrew into a solitary flurry of frenzied gloom. The musty old encyclopaedia of yore was replaced by snappy pamphlets on climate change and microplastics. I eventually ended up roaming shorelines as far east as Arniston with bin bags in tow, picking up as much trash as I could and snarling at passers-by offering to help. My body grew dark and heavy in the sun, blazing with fury like poisoned wood. Dogs barked at me and women quietly looked away. In my mind, taking all that crap to the dump meant that it would just somehow end up in the sea again anyway, so I tried stashing it in the backyard. It was a mess. The worst fucking part by far - from a sense of paranoid martyrdom or just downright disgust - was that I had stopped swimming in the ocean completely, a sacred daily ritual I used to perform rain or shine.
Somewhere in all that craziness I tried to reboot my line to the Divine by plunging headlong into Art. It wasn’t exactly a worthy substitute, but to some extent it tied me over. The idea of taking the queerest and most colourful pieces of debris and photographing them in my studio swiftly became a new fixation, somewhat taking the edge off the Bin Bag Crusade. In the studio’s lit sterility, the tacky shrapnel of an imploding system seemed elevated to something ethereal and pure, creating an eerily appealing visual mosaic that heightened the environmental commentary and would surely create renewed awareness for the cause. Yeah. And drunks would dry and pigs would fly, but that, at least, was the plan.   
One fine day, in dearest, darkest Pringle Bay, I noticed a pile of washed-up rubbish on the pretty little beach lining the milkwood forest, just on the other side of the rushing gulley where the river met the sea. I was fucking livid. Given its isolation, good ol’ Pring was the one place that was still relatively unspoilt in those parts, and to me it was hallowed ground. I was caught off-guard, but by the grace of God I was nothing if not prepared. Like a gunslinger lost on the Furthest Frontier, I set my jaw as I slowly took out the spare bin bag I always carried in the side pocket of my sweats, never taking my eye off my quarry. The finches in the milkwoods grew eerily quiet.
The river at my feet, however, was roaring like a motherfucker. It wasn’t too deep, but after the heavy rains of the passing days it would be tight getting through. I knew the streams had been running fresh and true from the mountains, so I quickly undressed and stepped into the water, cold like a stripper’s hand on my thigh. We took it slow. Halfway through I was submerged up to my chest and I was pretty relieved when I finally reached the other side. I quickly stuffed the filth into the bag, which turned out to be surprisingly heavy.
A few metres in on the way back, I knew I was in trouble. I was desperately trying to keep the bag above the current, and finding a foothold on the rocks below had become near impossible under its weight. I stopped for a moment to try and catch my balance before foolishly chancing one more step. I was instantly swept away. The bag spilled from my grip and I frantically reached after it, crashing downstream towards the surf.
It was over in the blink of an eye. The salt bit into my cut shins as I was sucked under the waves. Weightless after all that time, it was like coming up for air. Going down I let out a silver sigh, stringing pearls before landlubbing Swine of all kinds as high above my burden bloomed and brightly returned to the sea.
I was cured.

Photography, words, narration © Copyright Jac Kritzinger.

Music © Copyright Albertus van Rensburg.