Not a lot of pictures today. Yesterday I dropped my camera on a tile floor and cracked the screen. The crack looked minor but it doesn’t take much for water to get in and it certainly doesn’t take much water to wreak havoc on anything electronic. Right after the drop, I put the camera in my sink and it continued to work but I wasn’t very hopeful. Adding to the frustration is the reason why I dropped it. After just a couple weeks after I got this camera, the little release switch that opens the battery housing does nothing 80% of the time. So I need to find something sticky and apply it to the little door, trigger the release switch and pull up the sticker. By the way, the Trader Joes muffin packaging is very sticky and does a pretty good job here. So in the awkwardness of flipping the switch and getting the sticker just right on this small little camera, it dropped. Then after being in the ocean about 5 minutes, it was pretty much done.

So I ordered a new one to come tomorrow. I’m not totally thrilled with this camera but there are honestly no better ones I can find that meet my criteria: small, waterproof, not crazy expensive (just expensive), and high resolution (48MP). All in all I do like the pictures I get. I actually bought the protection plan this time which I rarely ever purchase.

So today’s swim was cloudy. It had a sort of a monsoonish feel to it. It rained briefly at my house this morning and I could feel a few drops here and there as I walked down the stairs to the beach. There were some patches of blue in the distance and it looked like it had the potential to clear or at least partially clear at any moment. However my phone tells me it is supposed to rain at 2 PM.

I swam north today. I got in the water a little before 11 and there was a slight breeze with a fair amount of texture on the water but not too bumpy. After it was obvious the camera was no longer functioning, that pretty much dominated my thoughts for the rest of the swim. It wasn’t a huge deal. I actually expected it to happen but hoped maybe the laws of physics would make an exception for me this time.

Of course I had a ton of birds flying super low nearby that I could not shoot (with a camera). There were a few birds flying just 10 feet over me that seemed to be following me for a bit.

Then I see a Seal/Sea Lion just a few feet away that was definitely following me for about 5 to 10 minutes. This made me nervous thinking about the aggressive Sea Lion problems earlier in the summer. I was super far from shore so there really was no option for escape. If the Seal was going to eat me then it was going to eat me. I wasn’t going to out swim it. The camera might not be working (super bummer) but maybe it would make a good defensive tool if I absolutely needed one. Well fortunately I didn’t. Man I would have loved to at least gotten a photo of a Seal.

The stress of the broken camera, Seal and the grey weather all made me look forward to getting home to my pot of coffee.

About 30% through the swim, the breeze seemed to pick up a bit and the water got more bumpy. Then about 75% through as I was passing the point on my way back, the breeze just came to a halt and the water went smooth.

Broken camera or not, it was a good swim and I’m glad I was out here. The air was warm and the water seemed a little cooler but not bad. There was lots of red tide but I have not grown a fifth limb yet. Jova still had some small leftover waves - these are probably the last of them.