I left the house at about 10:15. It’s been overcast all morning. We sure did have a great run of sunny mornings but they seem to be taking a bit of a break the last couple of days.

I make a quick stop at Ralphs on Golden Lantern on my way to the beach. I want to pick up a couple copies of The Dana Point Times. In this week’s issue there is a short article covering my blog. The author asked me a few questions about it over Instagram Messenger earlier in the week. It’s a real treat to see my name on the front of the paper.

I get to the parking lot and the air feels nice and warm in spite of the cloudy sky. It really doesn’t look like things will change any time soon in the cloud department but I know looks can be deceiving. It has been right about this time of day when we transition to sunny skies the last couple of days. I’m holding out hope but surrendering expectation.

As I take my first step onto the sandy beach, the sand feels warm on my feet. I want to lie down on the sand and just roll around in it, but that would probably attract unwanted attention. I’ve seen my son do it and it looks enjoyable.

I put my feet in the water and it feels pleasant. Temps dropped a couple of degrees early in the week from sustained afternoon west winds but those have been replaced with south winds and temps are recovering.

Surf is still pretty small. Seems like it's been a while since we have had any sizable surf. The water is pretty clear today. Still not stellar but decent. I shuffle my feet for stingrays. Someone just posted a photo on Facebook of a group of stingrays at the harbor so they could easily be here too.

I soon start swimming and it does feel a little cool but generally comfortable. I am swimming north and passing through pockets of warmer water here and there. As I look slightly behind me when I come up for air, I can see the the sun shining from behind the clouds. Slowly but surely I see lines form like cracks in an ice sheet where the clouds want to break away from one another and float free. Be free my friends, be free.

As I pass by the point in front of the lifeguard tower, those cracks become fissures. It’s all breaking apart and I’m sure it won’t be long before the clouds lose their dominance over the sky.

I stare out to sea to my left and watch the water sparkle brighter and brighter. I let that water absorb everything that I am and ever was. Thoughts and feelings drift across my field of perception. Some seem to come from random chaos. I’m convinced that there is more here that I am not picking up on. All of these whims and echoes of whims fill the backdrop of my mind’s eye like it has since I can remember. I exist among them like a fish in water. As they turn and bend, would I ever even notice? I want to notice.

I feel my hand contact a stray piece of seaweed pushing it under the water and then it floats back to the surface to meet my ankle and slides under the top of my foot. Then it’s gone. Will I ever intersect with it again? I watch all of these stalks of kelp below me and wonder which I am seeing for the first time and which I have seen a hundred times before.

I pause and have a brief look around just in front of the Salt Creek Snack Shop. It looks like things are really clearing up now. I can hardly recognize the beach I just left. Oh what a beautiful day. I keep swimming. I watch the rocks below me and follow them from rock to rock and wonder where they might lead me.

I’m getting close to the beach club. I gaze out to the end of Monarch point and its bald tip. The water is a navy blue and looks smooth and thick. I’m moved by what I see. I feel happily lost in time and space as if I traveled through some worm hole and just happened to land here.

I continue but just a tiny bit further. I could totally swim further but I have to get back to work. I think about how I almost left to swim earlier and it would have been fine but this timing is so perfect. I love watching the sky and water and beach change right before my eyes. The light changes everything - how it looks and how it feels.

I’m right in front of the little road that comes down from the golf coarse and toward the beach club. I turn around and head back to where I started.

The sun shines through the surface of the water. The underside of the ocean shines and reflects the light like bended glass. The sandy floor looks almost white. There is so much sand here at Salt Creek. It looks so soft from up here.

I stop just in front of the next bathrooms and see two large flocks of Pelicans fly by high in the air. I wish they would come closer. I wonder what it is that leads them to come close sometimes and fly high other times. Is it anything? Maybe they are just like us and like to change things up every now and then. I almost don’t even want to know the answer to this question. I like to just amuse myself with possibilities.

I really can feel the tone of the water change after turning around. It feels more turbulent and I think I am swimming against the current but as I look below me I watch the rocks and kelp seem to fly by faster than they did from the other direction.

The water is so clear in some spots and I see several large schools of translucent fish swimming all around me. One moment I am in the middle of what looks like thousands. Then I stop to take a breath, look down and they are all gone.

I make my final pass by the lifeguard tower. I look ahead and see the asphalt road where I will exit this place. I could stand to stay longer. The water feels warmer than it did when I started. The vegetation on the cliffs below the Ritz are filled with subtle changes in color. I see greens and reds and browns of varying shades.

I’m sad to see that the jr. lifeguard storage container is gone. It was here on my last swim on Monday. Well I look forward to seeing it next May or June. I think of all the buoys: Bob Marley, Big Bob, Ricky Bobby, the North Star. Do they dream in whatever warehouse they call home for the rest of the year?

Niguel Shores above seems to race on by and soon here I am right at the little lifeguard hut at the base of the asphalt. I come close to the shore and am taken by a breaking wave that pushes me down to the sand. I stand up and head for the stairs.