I got up at about 6 this morning and the sun is shining at my house. When I check the Strands webcam, I can’t see a thing. It is totally fogged in.

Still no sign of clearing up at 8 and I go to the gym for some elliptical. There is even fog in the parking lot at the gym. After my workout, I still can’t see a thing at the beach. Walk the dog and give her her medicine. Can’t see a thing. Give myself a hair cut. Now it’s 10:30 and I’m just starting to see slight glimpses of what is starting to look like a beach. Clean the litter boxes. It’s 10:45. Open up the Surfline app and head over to Strands. The cached image is a grey canvas of pure fog. Then I hit the Play icon to see the real time footage. BAM! A beach! I’m out of here.

Coast Highway is already backed up coming down into the San Juan Creek basin. The horizon looks very hazy but we are not siting on the horizon. I am in a warm car looking out onto blue skies over a white sand beach.

I get some gas up at the Chevron near the Hobie shop because traffic was too hectic near the Arco across from Doheny.

When I get to the parking lot there is no sign of fog anywhere except for the dissipating haze off shore which is rapidly evaporating in front of my very eyes. What is fog?

I head down the stairs and it is a delightfully bright scene down here. The water feels cold. It’s low tide but a 2.9 low. So not very low.

The surf has definitely come down since yesterday. I head out into the water and start swimming.

This water is definitely not getting any warmer. I’m actually getting an ice cream headache as I swim out to and past the surfline. I blame this on my haircut and the #1 clipper attachment I used. My arms below my elbows particularly feel the cold. Fortunately this subsides fairly quickly. The energy in my head calms and the rest of my body equalizes. Soon, I am aware of a coolness but feel generally comfortable. There are some warm spots every now and then but they are few and far between.

I head south. I’m making steady headway. Time passes fairly briskly and soon I am as far south as one can swim here without going around the point.

The water is getting more jumbly as it is apt to do about this time of day. However those wakes traveling steadily from the northwest are not nearly as intense as they were yesterday. Almost every breath results in a lungful of air today with little water passing through. I appretiate that.

I’m feeling a bit tuckered out physically and emotionally. I already did myself in on the elliptical machine and it’s getting late in the morning. That coffee at home (the coffee I am drinking right now in fact) is calling my name. I want it. I want it so much.

Coffee is gonna have to wait a bit though. I’m committed out here and am determined to get in a full swim.

My wife and toddler son are coming back today from their 9 day road trip. I miss them and am looking forward to seeing them but I can already feel the crashing tidal wave of their energy heading toward our house. No amount of duck diving expertise will allow one to avoid the white water wall coming. I’ll need to surrender to it’s force, relax my body and surface when I surface.

There are a lot of boats out here today and while I don’t have those northwest wakes today I do have plenty of wakes coming from the passing water craft.

At last I am at my northern terminus. The water feels warmer on the second half of the swim today but that could just be me. I turn around to finish things off.

It feels like it takes forever to swim from where I turned around to the beginning of the houses on the bluff in Niguel Shores. Then they seem to glide by at a fairly rapid clip and before you know it I’m done.

Walking up the stairs, my energy level feels low. As I reach the top this boy who looks to be about six is just starting to come down and yells incredulously back at his party, “Are you kidding me?!” This seems to be his first trip to our lovely beach and he sounds more than a little miffed about the journey before him. I want to tell him it’s worth it but afraid I won’t sound very convincing right now.