BR115 Starry Night
Beneath the endless sky, even the oldest boats dream of the sea.
The night air over Arniston was still, the kind of stillness that feels almost sacred. The tide had long retreated, leaving behind a damp shimmer across the concrete slipway where the boats rested. I walked slowly along the line of them, their hulls streaked with salt, their names and numbers etched like old tattoos — identifiers of men and memory. And there, beneath the rising arc of the Milky Way, stood BR115 - one of my Arniston Stories to be told.
Her paint was worn and flaking, the blue deepened by nightfall, the red of her keel darkened to the colour of rust. She looked weathered but not defeated — a vessel that had known both calm and storm, work and waiting. The sea had marked her, yet the stars above made her beautiful again, as if the universe itself had bent low to meet her.
I crouched low to frame her from beneath the bow, feeling the grit of salt and sand underfoot. The galaxy opened above in full bloom — a celestial river running from horizon to horizon. BR115 stood between the earth and that infinite sea of light. In that moment she seemed less a boat and more a bridge — a reminder of how the simplest things on land can mirror the immensity above.
There was no sound but the quiet whisper of the surf in the dark. Somewhere, further along the beach, a single gull called and was answered by the echo of its own cry. From the cottages in Kassiesbaai, faint light glowed through old windowpanes, soft and amber. The fishermen had long gone home, their day’s work done, their voices replaced by the chorus of night.
I thought about those who had built this boat, perhaps decades ago. Hands roughened by rope and wood, paint mixed and brushed on by lamplight. Every curve of her hull carried their touch. They might not have imagined her under the stars, admired not for her catch but for her quiet endurance. Yet here she was — the embodiment of time’s patience, of a community’s pulse bound to the rhythm of tides.
In Arniston, boats are more than boats. They are extensions of the people who live here — the old men who mend their nets on the shore, the boys who dream of the open water, the women who wait on the dunes for their return. Each one holds stories of hunger and hope, of struggle and gratitude. When I photographed BR115 that night, I wasn’t simply capturing an object; I was preserving a piece of that lineage — the continuity between ocean, labour, and light.
The longer I stood there, the more the scene shifted from documentation to something spiritual. The night sky seemed infinite, but the boat grounded it, giving the cosmos a shape to rest upon. I found myself thinking how often we forget that beauty doesn’t always reside in perfection. It lives in endurance — in the scratches, the layers of paint, the marks left by weather and work.
When I finally pressed the shutter, the click of the camera felt like a small act of reverence. The image that emerged later carried that feeling — the earthbound vessel beneath a sky of fire and dust. A meeting of two infinities: one of stars, one of stories.
As I left, the lights in the village flickered out one by one until only the stars remained. BR115 stood motionless, her shadow stretching toward the sea. I wondered if, come morning, she would still hold some trace of that night — a faint echo of the stars reflected on her bow.
There’s a quiet truth here, in this small fishing village: everything endures by belonging to something greater than itself. For the fishermen, it is the sea. For the boats, it is the hands that built them. And for me, as a photographer, it is this — standing in the cool silence beneath a canopy of stars, reminded that even what seems ordinary can hold the universe within its frame.
This and select images will be featured in my fine art print shop officially launching in 2026. To be notified about new print releases, you can subscribe via my website.
About The Arniston Stories
The Arniston Stories is a photographic series capturing the quiet resilience, heritage, and rhythms of life in the coastal village of Arniston (Waenhuiskrans), South Africa. Through a collection of fine art images and accompanying narratives, the series offers a window into the textures, histories, and natural beauty of this unique place—told one story, one photograph at a time.
