Dropped from Another Dimension

I left the house at 7:45 and it is an absolutely beautiful day out. I’m not seeing any signs of fog today which has been prevalent all week. On Thursday (two days ago), it was so thick that you could not see a thing through the webcams until almost 1:00 in the afternoon. As I descend from the bluff at Capo Beach into the San Juan Creek basin, I’m looking out to the horizon to see if there is any fog bank looming. I don’t see anything.

Surf has been up the last couple days and I’m just a bit preoccupied wondering how big it is going to be at the beach. It’s hard to get a good read from the webcam. I think about how when I started doing this a few years ago, I’d just go to the beach and the surf was what it was. Eventually I discovered Surfline.com but the size numbers did not mean much to me. Some days waves would be larger than other days and there might be some fear but I always did fine and so it seemed did everyone else.

Then we had a big swell late last year about this time and then again in January. Surfline said it was 4-5 feet. Big deal right? No. Not right. So now when I see 4-6, I’m aware that these readings are not an exact science. Also, the ocean is a super dynamic natural phenomenon. Waves can come in for hours at a certain size and then out of the blue comes a crazy set of waves much larger than the others.

I get to the parking lot and the water looks generally smooth but pretty lumpy. There is both a NW and a SSW swell crossing up the water. The air feels mild and good. I’m really not thinking about the water temperature. I don’t have any reason to think that it will be much colder than it was the last time I swam which was quite nice. A surfer is waxing his board and wearing a spring suit (short arm and leg sleeved) so I figure it’s gonna be fine.

The beach comes into view and I can see a thin layer of haze obscuring the north end of the beach. The surf does look sizable but not nuts. It’s overhead and I see a few surfers float over an incoming wave just before it breaks. It’s a medium tide. I line myself up to where I plan to start swimming. We are in a lull between sets and I start to swim. Suddenly the lull comes to an end but I am far enough out now that I can dive into their rising wake before they break and emerge out the back side.

I’m swimming north today. I usually like to stay south when the surf is up but there really is no great reason to avoid it. Salt Creek can break pretty far off shore especially near the point but I can easily swim past the break and I do. It feels like overall there is a lot more surf on the Salt Creek side.

When I cross the threshold past the lifeguard tower, I look back at the Strand and notice a lot of mist coming into the beach from the east. From where I am it looks almost like fog which makes me kind of nervous. I don’t want to contend with fog as I make my way to shore through this surf. However, I assume that my mind is exaggerating and it is probably more of a mist like what I saw when I first came down to the beach.

In fact, throughout the entire swim on the Salt Creek side of the point, there is a layer of mist hiding the beach and cliffs from my vantage point out here. I can see the beach and cliffs but it is pretty blurry and I can’t make out details like bathrooms or lifeguard towers or the snack shop.

I’m fairly preoccupied with my inevitable swim back through the surf. I know this is normal and try to use this as an exercise to relax my mind and let the worry dissipate. Other than the feeling of potentially impending doom, it is pretty great out here. The sun is shining, the water is pleasant, I’m in a huge open expanse of water and I feel worlds away from any terrestrial care.

I’m thinking of this documentary I watched last night called Earthing about the practice of grounding which is essentially the act of walking bare foot on the earth. I heard about this a couple years ago and then mostly forgot about it. Apparently it is a thing and not without controversy. The idea is that by doing this, you allow the earth’s electro-magnetic charge to pass through your body. It is similar to grounding a wire. Proponents believe that this has healing effects and can reduce inflammation in the body. The movie has lots of anecdotal stories and the general idea makes sense to me. It certainly feels good to walk barefoot on earth. In fact, I’ll never forget the very first day that I swam in the ocean and how amazing I felt afterwards. Swimming in a natural water source is also grounding.

I’m also thinking of a podcast I listened to this week of a paraplegic talk about his healing experience with yoga. It was not so much about what he said but how he said it. He seemed to have this relationship or deep understanding with his body and space and silence. He had this language which was actually more down to earth that “new agey” of describing these relationships and it seemed to inspire me to notice my own body and its interaction with the space around me. And now I feel echoes of that in thinking of this grounding ocean swim. I feel connected to the movement of the water and sensitive to the silence that passes between the sounds of the birds and my arms striking the surface of the water.

I’m nearing the Monarch Beach Club and it is time to turn back. I’m honestly a little relieved because I want to get the swim through the surf behind me. I have watched the shore break for the last 30 minutes and it is not small. I keep my aim directed at the end of the point beneath the Dana Point headlands knowing that will keep me sufficiently away from the main offshore surf break beyond the lifeguard tower. When I finally near that tower I am pretty much right where I want to be. There is also a lot of bird activity here. There are groups of birds fighting over something in the water. They fight just inshore of me and then fly west and fight again on the other side of me. Who knows? Maybe they are fighting about me.

The water surface seems not as bouncy as it was the last time I was here on the way to Monarch. It is also clear that there is no threating fog waiting for me at the shore further south. Now that I am in Strands territory, the waves break closer to shore at least until one nears the rocky reef break in front of the ramp. I aim myself in a diagonal direction so that I make steady south east progress. Just a few houses before my end point, I straighten out due south to avoid the surf until the last necessary moment.

That moment soon comes and a larger wave breaks just in front of me. I’m still fairly far from the beach. I let the turbulence have its way with me and just relax, keeping my eyes open and watching the fluffy bubbly water here in the dark. There is some pretty good force to it and I soon emerge back to the surface. Another is coming but I’m pretty well positioned to avoid the brunt of the break that is further south. Somehow I have been pushed further south than I want to be and am almost in the surf pack. I make my way back north to avoid the inshore rocks. Soon I head almost directly for the beach and all goes well. I am pushed by a few smaller waves and before I know it I can feel the sand beneath me.

I stand up and am filled with the triumph of survival. I ponder and find it almost comical how I can be in the water for over an hour and almost all of that time is tranquil but these last two minutes feel like a fight to keep breathing. I pass by walkers on the beach as I make my way to the stairs. I feel like someone who has been dropped down from a different dimension and I could never share the experience I just had out in the water with them because there is no way they would ever believe me.