My Ocean- Heritage Week 2026 “You can be alone without feeling lonely”
Video transcript
As some of you know, I’m from Germany, and as you can imagine, my story isn’t about the Irish Sea.
But my story starts in Ireland. So, recently I went to Dublin Bay, and it was low tide, and it reminded me of the first time I went to the North Sea.
And I was on a small German island close to the border between Denmark and Germany. And the coast between Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands is the largest tidal flat area in the world. And when the tide is out, you can walk for kilometers on the seafloor—and I don’t know if you use kilometers, it’s a lot.
And, you know, some people call it seafloor and some people just call it mud. And that was me. And so, for the first time, I walked out onto the mudflats.
And, honestly, I hated it. I was like, why… why would I go to the seaside if I had to wait four hours for the water to come back here? And while waiting, I’m just walking through mud, seaweed, and little crabs.
So, but once you get through it, you can walk across the seafloor. And there was nothing around me except a few streams of water, and sometimes you couldn’t even see other people around.
And I was going through a difficult time, and I also didn’t want to see anyone else around. And so, there was I, like, alone with a few puddles of water around me. And I don’t know what it was—maybe it was something in the reflections on the water, or maybe it was my own reflection—but somehow, after that holiday, I started to feel better.
And maybe that’s the most beautiful thing about the sea for me: that you can be alone without feeling lonely, because you are all by yourself. And maybe it’s a little cheesy, but that feeling is carrying me through my tiny island right now. And you’re all a part of that experience. So, thank you for having me. Okay.
Hilda O'Grady
