It Really Looks Like That

Ok…freezing. I’m not talking about the water but the last couple of mornings here have been particularly crisp. As I am going about my morning and definitely expecting to get in the water, I’m trying to disable all expectations I may have for the coldness factor because I just know they will be totally out of whack. On Wednesday we did have a proper north westerly blow through that typically spells bad news for water temps. The Thursday morning surf report said that the water temperature came down a few degrees. “Few” is the operative word here. I take a look at the local buoys. Oceanside and San Pedro read the same 62 degrees they have been reporting for the last week or so. The two Camp Pendleton buoys are down a single degree at 61. So I’m wondering if there might be a little over exaggeration in this report. I hope so. At 9:30 we finally rise to 60 degrees outside (it feels like it is 20 inside my house). Then we are back down to 58 at 10:00. I better get a move on before it gets any colder. Once I am outside, I feel direct sunlight and instantly start to thaw.

I’m actually bringing my pack today and I might bring it down to the beach. If I get out of my car and I am miserably cold, forget it - I’m putting on a sweatshirt and bringing that pack down. We’ve had a good run. Usually I need the pack come November and here we are now in January. I get to the parking lot and it’s actually fairly pleasant out so forget the pack. Who knows…can we make it to February? Well the water temperature may be the final deciding factor there. We’ll see what a “few degrees” feels like. I’m just trying to keep the expectation engine turned off as I walk down the stairs.

I get to the beach and it’s absolutely lovely. Tide is low - a little over a foot. Boy I feel like I have time traveled back to last March with the sand conditions. Lots of exposed cobble stone along the eastern edge of the shore. Also, I’m seeing waves breaking pretty far out, but smaller surf so it must be pretty shallow out there. The light is beautiful. It’s mostly sunny with a thin layer or broken up cloud cover over much of the sky creating a silver shimmering glow on the smooth ocean surface. There are some Sand Pipers running about and I feel the water hit my feet. I am instantly relieved. I don’t sense any kind of temperature plummet. It feels generally the same as it has for a month or more. Things could change once I start swimming but there is definitely no major cool off. Few degrees - I think not.

I start to make my way out in the water. It feels like I am walking for quite a ways before I start swimming. The water remains very shallow for quite a while. I am trying my best to shuffle my feet as I walk because I’m not sure if there might be some larger rocks that have been exposed. It does not seem like there are. The floor is still well covered by sand. I hope it stays that way through to late Spring. It usually does but last year was different.

I finally reach a point where I can start swimming. I see waves breaking out beyond me but by the time we meet, the break water peters out and there is nothing to dive under. Yeah the water feels a tad cooler but we are still good. This is very pleasant - everything about this. I am getting a bit of an ice cream headache but I blame yesterday’s hair cut for that and it should be gone in a couple minutes.

Swimming south south south. Suddenly I feel something hit my head. I look up and it is a lobster trap buoy. I ran right into it. I’m pretty certain there is some kind of magnetic force in those things that draw me into their gravitational field. Oops. I guess that would be a gravitational force, not magnetic.

The entire swim is a delight. It is pretty much the antithesis of my paranoid visions earlier in the morning. As I swim I watch the water clarity wax and wane over and over and the water temperature follows becoming warmer in the clearer spots. It never gets all that clear but it is definitely less cloudy than Monday. The light and the clouds have a magic to them today. Well, they actually have that everyday but today they are really showing me something. Sometimes I look at the pictures I take and ask myself, “does it really look like that?” Yes, it really looks like that. What is it about water, sky, surf, sand and clouds that appeal so strongly to the senses over, say, a chain link fence?

As I swim north over the back half of my journey, I watch the intensity of the light increase beneath the water. As this happens, I can feel it trigger my emotions and adjust the timbre of my thoughts (in a good way).

The swim draws to a close and I angle myself towards shore. I start to enter the surf. Again, it feels odd because I am still a good ways from the beach and it’s small stuff. I swim and swim in this surf and occasionally look up thinking I must be close. The waves are gentle and I enjoy feeling them roll over me.

I swim for as long as I can until it just makes no sense to swim any longer. This actually gets me pretty darn close to the pebbly shore. I stand up and there is a final ledge I need to ascend in order to reach shore level. A small wave hits the back of my legs and gives me the last push I need to step right on up to the top of that ledge.