Bio-Feedback

I’m leaving at 11:15 and it’s a pretty great day here in Dana Point. Here we are in the last week of Winter and it’s already starting to feel like Spring. That’s certainly better than I can say for last year and I hope I am not jinxing anything. Something tells me though, that this Spring may be extra kind in the water temperature department. And now I have probably just ruined it.

Speaking of water temperature, I’m falling into my usual pre-swim water temperature obsessing habit earlier this morning but lately I’m learning to just try and block out the dread. I’m usually not a big believer in blocking out feelings, at least not consciously, but in this case it’s the best strategy I can come up with. The absolute fact of the matter based on hundreds of past experiences is that I am going to get into that water and it is going to be great. Succumbing to feelings of loathing about being cold and suffering an experience that I will simply not have has no value for me.

So I push through meetings and some other work in the morning before I can make it out to the beach. It’s a pleasant drive and Doheny looks a little bumpy but inviting as I pass over San Juan Creek. The Strand parking lot has a few cross-fitters engaged in pushups and lunges and stair climbing. It is very pleasant out. It is mostly blue sky directly above with lots of large puffy clouds in all directions of the periphery.

I walk down the stairs and kill a few extra calories with the energy I expend not getting worked up about the cold water. According to the buoy data this morning, temps remain where they have been for weeks. It’s 59/60 which is a pretty good place to be.

It’s a moderate high tide - close to 4 feet and the water washes up to the rocks on some sets but it’s sandy and fine to walk on the shore even though it disappears every now and then. The sand looks to have come down a little bit but not much. I just notice that the rocks where I set my pack are now close to thigh level where they were once at my shins.

I walk out into the water. For the first time since mid-Fall, it looks like the rock filled trough is completely filled in. However the primary surf is still breaking a good ways out. It’s up a bit from my last few swims but not particularly large either. I eventually find myself past the surf and start to swim south. The water feels good. You see? It feels good. No need to stress out about this.

The cold is good. Saying that makes me feel like the Gordon Gekko character in Wall Street proclaiming “Greed is good.” I’m not a subscriber of that belief, but “cold is good” has a similar unintuitive, “how can that be true” sort of ring to it. There is something about the cold that forces my thinking and my very perception of the world and my entire immediate experience to shift. It can push me out of the doll drums or despair and draw me in to a higher form of thought - at least most of the time and at least for a while. I’ll take every second of higher thought that I can get.

All that said, I admit that we are on the cusp of true cold. 59-60 degrees is fairly comfortable for me, at least in the Winter. 62 in July can be tough. Today I feel good over the entire swim. I just let my body relax into the water and not expect any more heat than what is presently here. I swear that I can feel the water become more comfortable as my mind relaxes and my body follows. The ocean becomes a sort of bio-feedback mechanism where thought influences physical sensation in real time.

I can also sense the day become sunnier over the course of the swim which of course only helps…everything. As I swim south, I can feel myself swimming against the current. However it is not particularly strong or rough. I’m happy about this because that means I will be with the current on the north bound leg which I find to be the toughest psychologically. Even way out here past the surf, I can feel the waves roll under me. Today’s swell (primarily from the north but helped by a southern component as well) seems to be, I’m not sure of the term, “steeply angled”?…”peaky”? I read these terms in the daily surf reports but I admit I’m not certain what they mean. At any rate, the wakes are highly pronounced as they pass. They are not always so. Even larger surf can be more subtle than this though much larger surf almost always lets me know it is in the water.

When I reach the south end of the beach, I stop before turning around and notice a wave breaking not too much further from where I am near the cliffs. Out here the waves look bigger. However I am well inside the “safe” zone. I take in the view from all directions and it is super nice. The contrast of blue sky and large clouds create a cool landscape portrait to study.

I head north now and wonder at what point will the cold start to creep into my core like it so often does about half way to two thirds up the beach. Delightfully today my core perseveres and I feel great all the way. I find myself staring at the clouds that are slightly in my aft view. They are particularly white and billowy and it just feels good to look at them. Every now and then I notice I have let go of all thought and it feels like my very identity slips away and drifts out to Catalina while I continue forward without fear or hope or past or future.

I’m now at the north end and a pure black Cormorant flies by. It flies around me in a circle. I love Cormorants that way. They sometimes seem to actually notice me and sort of fly by to say hello. This one comes real close and I can see the sheen of light on its black coat of feathers.

Welp, it’s time to finish up. I swim back to where I started and it seems like the tide has come down…maybe? High tide peaked about half way through my swim. Well it’s low enough and I enjoy the sun shiny walk back to the car.