I left at about 10:15 and it is still overcast. I don’t see any sign of burn off. No blue tint or gaps in the sky. Well I figure we had a good run of sun while it lasted. At least it is warm out. And who knows? It could totally clear up in the course of an hour which wouldn’t surprise me at all.

For the first time in months, I’m leaving my backpack and towel at home. I can put those into storage until mid to late Fall. I don’t anticipate any need to dry off and warm up for the rest of this season.

When I get to the parking lot, things still look overcast but I can see a slice of blue sky on the distant horizon. It’s more than a crack but less than an expanse. I hope that provides a perfectly clear illustration. Whatever it is, it is hope and possibility.

As I walk down the stairs, the ocean looks mostly grey/silver while the outer edge is a dark blue where the sun lit sky is exposed. When I pass the lifeguard station, the water temperature reads 67. The water feels good and the wet sand feels warm. I move out into the water and start swimming south.

The entire first half of the swim is kind of a grind. The sky is grey and somewhat dismal and my right goggle lense keeps leaking and driving me absolutely nuts. I have to stop about every couple of minutes to lift the lense and empty out the water. I’m intentionally swimming a little closer to shore. While I think Tuesday was a sort of freak anomaly, I really want to avoid a marathon today and keep myself from whatever kind of current I ran into offshore on that swim that made swimming inland an epic journey. Was it a rip tide? I don’t know. It did not feel at all like I was being swept out and there was no significant swell in the water that typically accompany rip tides.

I make it to the south end of the beach and turn around to swim north. I’m keeping an eye on the Ritz to maintain course and draining my goggles regularly. It’s hard to relax my mind and I feel all scattered. The water isn’t choppy or super bumpy but everything looks and feels topsy turvy - inside and out. Still to be clear, I am glad to be here and happy to be doing what I am doing.

After a good while of swimming north, I notice that I’m pretty close to the boardwalk which is head and shoulders farther than I was at this perceived time on Tuesday. I kind of feel like I just got started compared to that swim. Do I need to put in a second lap?

I dump out the water from my goggles yet again and this time try to push the goggles harder into my face. This seems to have done the trick. Oh what a relief. I’m well past the boardwalk now and the sun feels like it is winning the battle here. The water also looks smoother. We are in that mid-late morning transitional period where the wind briefly subsides before changing to a more westerly direction.

I’m beginning to sense that a transformation has taken place. Suddenly everything is bright and sunny and calm and pretty darn great. I can feel the light wash over my spirit and smooth out my thoughts.

The jr. lifeguard buoys are coming into view and I see the North Star to my northwest. I’m feeling game to swim on out to it. It’s a great little side trip. I’m seeing lots and lots of those little translucent thumb sized jellies. I’m really not 100% certain they are jellies. They seem to be getting bigger over the past week or so. I’m also not sure if that is just my hyper active imagination or if they are the same size they were when I first started seeing them. If not, I wonder how big they will get?

Well here I am at the North Star. It is so very bright out now and feels like it is Summer where just an hour before it did not feel like Summer at all. I head towards the asphalt road and watch Monarch Bay to my left. It’s all very pretty regardless of the direction I look. I see another one of those jelly things and it looks like it has something solid inside it. I don’t know if it is part of its anatomy or if it a foreign object that has somehow made its way inside. It’s very odd looking.

I reach the shore and it’s a totally different beach from when I started - a different day. I feel different too.