Pečina, ki visi nad tabo

Ko se spusti dovolj globoko, Polly opazi, da se je z nebom zgodilo nekaj čudnega. Manj ga je. Pogleda gor in vidi, da pečina visi čez njeno glavo, zgoraj širša kot tu spodaj, tako da je mesto na vrhu nekje zadaj in zgoraj, povsem izven pogleda.

By the time she has gone far enough down, Polly notices that something strange has happened to the sky. There is less of it. She looks up and finds the cliff hanging out over her head, wider up there than it is down here, so that the town at the top is somewhere behind and above and completely out of sight.

To počne morje že zelo dolgo. Valovi glodajo dno pečine in odnašajo skalo od spodaj, skala zgoraj pa, ko ji ne ostane nič, na čemer bi stala, čaka. Vzdolž te obale je morje v vznožje pečin izdolblo cele jame, široka temna žrela, ki pogoltnejo valovanje in ga vrnejo z bobnenjem, ki ga Polly čuti skozi stopnico, na kateri sedi.

This is what the sea has been doing for a very long time. Waves work at the bottom of a cliff and take the rock away from underneath, and the rock above, having nothing left to stand on, waits. Along this coast the sea has cut whole caves back into the base of the cliffs, wide dark mouths that swallow the swell and give it back with a boom she can feel through the step she is sitting on.

Na policah pod njo stojijo temno zelene ptice z razprtimi perutmi in jih sušijo v vetru. To so vranjeki in na teh skalah gnezdijo v številu, ki nekaj pomeni. Skoraj polovica vseh vranjekov, ki gnezdijo v celotnem Sredozemskem morju, gnezdi ob tem delu obale in na otočkih onkraj nje.

On the ledges below her there are dark green birds standing with their wings held open, drying them in the wind. They are shags, and they nest along these rocks in numbers that matter. Close to half of all the shags breeding in the whole Mediterranean Sea nest around this stretch of coast and the little islands beyond it.

Eden od njih brez opozorila pade s police, se zloži in se potopi v vodo tako čisto, da komaj kaj pljusne. Polly čaka. Dolgo ga ni. Ko se pokaže na površju, je presenetljivo daleč stran in v kljunu ima ribo.

One of them drops off its ledge without warning, folds, and goes into the water so cleanly that it barely makes a splash. Polly waits. It is gone a long time. When it surfaces it is a surprising distance away, and it has a fish.