Sheltered Loads
9 February 2022
Photos
The working docks of today have hundreds of thousands of cargo containers, cranes the size of football fields, ships that might as well be sovereign countries and miles upon miles of dedicated infrastructure. But this smaller working dock shows how things used to be done, and how things are still done at smaller scale. Plymouth Sound is one of the world’s greatest – if not the greatest – natural harbour. Ships have left here for centuries – for war, for discovery, for science, for trade, for fishing and for piracy. Some of the biggest names in maritime history departed from these waters: Darwin, Thomas Cooke, Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh, the Mayflower, and many many more. Dotted alongside the shore are many of these little sheltered nooks and crannies, where in times past and today working vessels load on or off – at a scale that is perhaps more suitable for humanity’s actual place in the natural pecking order. It is easy to disrespect nature when you enjoy the illusion of safety and privacy deep within a concrete block. But the men who for centuries braved the waters of the world, from docks just like this one, understood their relative size and importance when it came to the oceans. It’s often in the small things that true scale is best understood.

Peter van der Walt is a fiction author, although you may find some non-fiction and the odd essay out there. Fans can find his newsletter, posts, updates and developments at petervanderwalt.com. Currently, he is hard at work on his next story. When not writing, he has far too many interests to reasonably keep up with. He lives with his partner in Devon, England.