Megapod
We are having another run of spectacularly spectacular days here in Dana Point. Today is looking even more promising than yesterday. It is 66 degrees out and climbing when I leave my house at 11:00. The moment I walk out my front door, I feel a brush of warm air on my legs like a kiss from the breeze. The sky is about as blue as can be.
Last night’s sunset and twilight were absolutely incredible. I was driving Just north of North Beach away from San Clemente and the horizon was this extremely dark shade of pink, I could see a perfect silhouette of the entire island of Catalina and a thin sliver of moon was lit up in front of its whole spherical shadow. All this topped off with the lights of the harbor and Doheny in the background. It was almost overwhelming.
When I get to the Strand parking lot, the ocean surface is wonderfully smooth. I get out of my car and as I begin to walk down the stairs, I feel ridiculous carrying my backpack and almost turn around to return it to my car. There is no way that I am going to feel a desire to put on more clothes after today’s swim. Yes - the water is cold but it is so nice out here and nothing could possibly substitute for the naked warmth of the sun.
When I get down to the bathrooms, I can see a pod of several dolphins just out in front of me and super in-shore. There is a mom and 12ish year old daughter at the showers here and I get this sense that they might enjoy this even though it seems awkward to interject my stranger self into their conversation. I go ahead and alert them to the dolphins and they run to the fence and are completely delighted with what they see. This ends up being a particularly good sighting. Usually I see dolphins here in groups of about - 3 give or take a couple. This looks like maybe 20 and they stretch out over a hundred yards or more. I’ve never seen such a large group here.
When I get to the concrete ramp to the sand I notice that it is not in the disrepair I thought I saw yesterday. It looks in tact and I must have just seen a bunch of rubble piled on top yesterday. There are two construction workers here and I ask them if they are just adding more rock to the base of the cliff and they say that is exactly what they are doing.
The tide is probably near 4 feet but the water is still comfortably a ways from the bluff. I head into the water. Conditions are fairly identical to yesterday. The surf is small but maybe half a foot bigger and the surface is a little smoother and the tide a bit higher but it is nice nice nice. I dive underneath a broken wave and hover just a couple inches above the sandy floor and watch this brief storm of churning water and sand clear away as I breach for the surface. The cold water feels like it just might have a little less sting to it today. I still feel the initial fatigue and shortness of breath set in but it lacks the intensity that was here yesterday.
I swim south and I soon slip into “feeling great” mode. About half way down the beach I think I hear a squeaking sound (dolphin) and I stop to look around. I don’t see anything but I start hearing these snorting and huffing sounds and it feels like they just have to be close. Sure enough I soon see several swimming by. They are probably 50 feet in shore of me. They are right where the surfers are. Again, there’s lots of them and they are fairly spread out. I hang around here for a few minutes to see if anymore are coming and maybe closer. Eventually it feels like the group has passed and I move on.
Everything feels just half a degree warmer than yesterday which is significant enough for me. It feels pretty perfect. It is cold for sure but I’m not uncomfortable. I let the ocean refresh me and wash me clean from the inside out. I want to give my whole self to this space that surrounds me. I want to let go of my reaching for the end of the swim and my effort to be done and let myself melt into the continual unfolding of each and every stroke. I feel like I’m moving fast. Everything about this day and place feels fresh and new and pure and unsoiled by past and future. The sun purifies and penetrates me and mixes with the water to create a sort of wormhole into a different realm but which coexists on top of this one. Maybe it was always here.
When I reach the north end of the beach, I wonder how this all happened so quickly. I gaze towards the lifeguard tower at the point and I watch the surfers punch through the waves of an oncoming set. The water reflects the bald cliff below the Ritz. It’s time to swim back now and finish this up.
Once I’m lined up with the boxy house that is my final destination I see dolphins again. I just see one at first. It has submerged itself and is now just a dark shadow below the surface but it is super close - maybe 10 feet - from me. Then they are suddenly all around me. There must be at least 30 or more swimming by. They keep their distance from me but are still close enough for me to catch a couple photos which by the way is very tricky. They are not stopping to pose and they only come up for a couple seconds before diving back down for several. I take one shot and I am disappointed but my camera is still saving the photo before I can get the one I really want. I realize when this is all over that I should have been capturing this in video mode and then I could just splice out some stills. Oh well. Next time.
As I come to shore, I exchange some words with a surfer and tell him I have never seen so many dolphins. He emphatically declares that was a real Megapod! I looked this up and I’m not so sure it was quite at that scale but I like the sound of it…Megapod.
