Just Water on My Back
It’s a late start at 12:30 in the early afternoon. Skies are clear and the air is warm in the low 70’s. All signs are indicating that the potential for a delightful swim is extremely high.
On the way, it is so nice out that I wonder if the parking lot might be full. I remember my very first swim here in 2020, there was not one available space and I had to park out by The Coastal Kitchen restaurant and walk over from there. It is a holiday week this week too.
Ok. There are plenty of spaces here. It is Tuesday after all. I get out of the car and the ground is not just warm but fairly hot. I walk down the stairs and I can hear the water calling my name. I am going back and forth trying to decide to swim south or north today. I choose south because that is likely to take the least amount of time and I need to pick up my dog at the kennel on the way home.
There are quite a few people on the beach - as there should be on a day like today. I am feeling so incredibly spoiled that I can step away from work, hop in the car and enjoy this wonderful beach for an hour or so and then return to life as I left it. I wonder how many here had to drive an hour or more to get here.
The lifeguard station says it is 66 degrees in the water but I’m willing to bet that it is closer to 70. I walk to my spot and then through a small crowd of youngsters and wade past very small surf. As these tiny waves approach, these kids act like a huge face is rolling in and they sound like they are having the time of their lives. Good for them.
I get past the breaking waves and start to swim south. It doesn’t take long at all to realize that we are well north of 66 degrees out here. Oh it is so so nice. It’s has got to be 70. Certainly no cooler than 69. Last night’s water temperature forecast predicts even more warming through the week. It could stay like this and I’d be more than content.
The visibility below the surface is not spectacular but it is better than what has been average the past several months. I’m seeing more of those little alien sea creatures out here. I researched them and discovered they are neither Jellies or Pyrosomes (aka Sea Pickles). They are Salps. I mostly see just the singular modules but do sight a few stringy colonies throughout the swim.
I just melt into the lusciousness of this swim as I am drenched in warm water under a bright sunny sky with a beautiful shore to stare out at all the way to the end of the beach. I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be. When I reach my southern terminus, I see an unmanned motorized inflatable raft. I figure it belongs to a diver and do not see the diver around.
On the way back north I spot the offshore OCJG buoy that for whatever reason I have been unable to locate the last few swims. I don’t know if it took a small vacation or if it has just eluded my vision. Either way I’m glad to see it here.
I am trying to forget my self as I swim north and absorb the horizon. I hold all of these concepts in my head of who it is that I think that I am or who it is that I want to be. All of these are self constructed stories that I weave and tell to myself and try to hold together into a cohesive narrative fit for public consumption. I set my aim for one self portrait after another and try to shape my experience into their image. Trying and trying and trying.
Maybe just today or just right now in this water I can let go of these concepts and images. Maybe I can just watch the horizon and let it be a horizon. Maybe I can just feel the water over my back and let it be water on my back. Maybe I can hear my breath bubbling in the water and let that be all of me there is and ever was. Maybe I can wait for those bubbles to rise to the surface and surprise myself with who I actually am.
More Salp, more sun, more blue blue water descending into nowhere. Long and large vines of kelp rise from the bottom and bend just below the top and look as though they are reaching for me as I approach. I gladly make contact.
Well there is the North Star buoy. It looks kind of far off in the distance and I don’t even consider swimming out to it today. I pause here and I am thankful for the solitude in spite of the crowd on the beach and the boats not too far away.
I head back and swim through patches I am sure are at least 75 degrees. Just before turning toward shore, I see that motorized raft again - still unmanned. I reach the beach and blissfully head up the stairs. The ground has become even more hot and I have to walk quickly to my car over the black top and stand on the white parking line while I retrieve my keys.
I drive to San Juan to pick up my dog and cover a route via Selva that I rarely take now but used to take nearly every day when I was a kid. It makes me feel nostalgic. I both wish I could return to that time and am simultaneously relieved that I am well past it.
