Another warm and beautiful morning in Dana Point. It’s 10:00 and I wonder: should I leave now or wait until it warms up a little more? The last couple mornings I have left closer to 10:30 and the swim was perfect. Why should I change it up? The surf report mentions something about a fog bank hanging out off of San Clemente and I can see it just offshore from the pier’s web cam but Strands and Salt Creek look totally clear. Well I might as well leave now before anything changes.

As I pass Doheny, I definitely see the remains of a marine layer near the horizon but nothing resembling a fog bank. Besides that fading marine layer, there is not a cloud in the sky.

I get to the parking lot and head down the stairs. This is all starting to feel like the classic Bill Murray movie Ground Hog Day. For three days in a row now I come to the beach with pristine conditions - warm, sunny, and no wind. This definitely beats Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania in blizzard conditions - the setting of Ground Hog Day. Lets keep these days coming please!

I make my way out into the water. Just like the last couple days, it is cool but with an abundance of warm patches. Visibility is still decent but down a notch or two. Surf holds the same meager size. I’m heading north today and setting my aim for the tip of Monarch point.

I get closer and closer to the lifeguard tower. I’m super close today because there is really no surf to avoid. As I look up and out onto the cliffs along Monarch, the colors seem so vibrant. The green of the brush against the bare brown dirt and all the houses along the top with the rich blue sky and water occupying 80% of the scene.

I pass the point. The water feels a touch cooler today but still very reasonable. I keep swimming and swimming and swimming. I avoid looking inshore. I don’t want to see those bathrooms because that would mean I need to turn around. I do look straight ahead and those Monarch cliffs are getting closer. I’d really like to swim all the way to that small beach about two thirds of the way to the end of the point. I just don’t have the time today.

I’m entering Lobster buoy territory now so I know I must be near or at the golf coarse. The buoys are sprawled out like a mine field. Well I guess if I was a Lobster, that would be a fitting analogy. Just a little farther…surely I can stay just a little while longer. I am almost in front of the beach club and that is a sign that I have to turn back.

I head south and I can see the beach now. That beach enters my vision like a drug and calms my nerves. It enters through the eyes and wraps around my mind and then follows the vegas nerve to my heart. I feel it radiating all throughout my chest. For these next few minutes, the beach makes up the entire circumference of the Earth and this moment fills all history and expands out to eternity.

The beach slowly glides by. I arrive at the large lawn between the parking lot and the snack shop, the green glows bright offset by the shade of the cliff below the Ritz Carlton. The water has been smooth all morning just like the last two days and looks like I am swimming through a mirror of butter. I look out toward Dana Point and the edge of the bluff collapses and lengthens as the water gently moves up and then down. It’s as if the crust of the Earth on the ocean floor is alive and breathing - giving life to the water, giving life to me and anything else that enters it.

I can see the end of the point just past the lifeguard tower approaching. I see small waves breaking right in front of it. Again I come in close and I adjust my aim to try and come even closer. Soon the tower is behind me and I have passed from one beach to another.

I’m swimming along the block of houses on the western edge of Niguel Shores. I’m beginning to notice a very subtle change in hue. The sky in front of me still looks as blue as can be but there is an ever so slight silver tint. I look up and to the south and there is that fog bank. It has found me and determined to consume this beach. This is all fine. I’m pretty much done here. It dominates the southern third of the horizon just past the headlands and I’m pretty sure I’ll have sunshine overhead all the way to the shore and up the stairs.

This turns out to be an accurate prophesy. I swim all the way to the ramp. The water does not have the stunning clarity it had yesterday but it is still more than nice. As I climb the stairs, it feels like that fog is chasing me down. When I get to the top, it has reached the southern shore. Salt Creek is still clear, but looking south, it feels like the seasons have turned.

As I drive home down PCH, the fog thickens and has completely enveloped Doheny and the cliff along Capo Beach. I climb up to the Palisades and it is blue skies once again. I run a quick errand at the CVS pharmacy in San Clemente. Looking west behind the shops, you can see that fog bank like a vapor floating below blue sky.

I get home and check out the Strands web cam. I can’t see a thing.