Polar Night

Well it has happened. Our SoCal polar night has descended. The water temperature is 58 degrees. That’s just a few degrees colder than when I last swam five days ago but an eternity exists in those three degrees separating two climates that appear alien to one another. We sure had a great run of > 60 degree water this season. I was beginning to hold out the hope, admittedly preposterous, that maybe we’d just skip the 50’s this year. But alas, this is not the year of jubilee I had fantasized. That’s ok. The cold has its value. What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger. I’m blissfully ignoring the fact that I don’t really think that saying is always true. Also, that only works out if you are not killed.

Pic from Aliso Beach in Laguna on Sunday

I left the house at 11:00 today. I’ve been wanting to get in the water since Tuesday (it’s Friday today) but I have been sick and just have not been up to the task. I knew the water temps had chilled. First we had that wallop of wind all day Sunday that brought temps down at least a degree or two. I really wanted to get a swim in Tuesday or Wednesday because I knew we were in for more west wind on Thursday that would drive temps down even more. I had this theory, completely unproven, that if I could get in the water in between the drops, the cold today would be more tolerable. Where do I come up with these ideas? That I somehow completely believe.

So today I am absolutely not operating at 100% capacity but I just have to get in the water. What if I forget how to get to the beach? Or swim? I have this other crazy theory that maybe a swim is just what I need to push me over the edge into full recovery. (Hmm. Maybe it’s a different sort of edge it will push me over.) As if all one needs is an hour long swim in 58 degree water to sort of shock out any lingering sickness. Perhaps this belongs in the same family of theories that state that swimming in the ocean will pretty much stave off any illness one might otherwise encounter. I’ve met some who are convinced of this. None of them, by the way, are swimmers. They ask me when the last time I was sick and expect me to say something like 30 years or at least the four years I have been doing this. But gosh (did I just actually say “gosh”?), it seems like I was just sick a couple months ago - because I was.

It’s a beautiful day out. Not a cloud in the sky really. However, we are not going to be breaking any heat records today. It just crested 60 degrees. Still I’ll take all the direct sunlight I can get. Thankfully I remember how to get to the beach. Today I’m bringing my pack. I know the water temp has plunged and it’s not exactly sizzling out here. I’m so grateful that I could walk down to the beach in just trunks all December and early January but today it ends. I have to haul this thing down to the beach and find a place to stash it. My pre-swim ritual is amended by a few minutes where I strip off my upper layers and stash them in the pack. All the while giving me more time to wonder why I ever thought this was a good idea yet knowing the answer to that question can only be found in the water…and it can indeed be found.

As I approach the beach, a surfer is making his way up and I notice he is wearing a hood. The tide is high. It peaked a while back at a very deep 6.8 and its now about in the mid 4s. Typically that wouldn’t be too high, but with our lack of sand, the waves wash up all the way to the rocks at the bottom of the bluff. The walkers are walking on the make shift trail above the rocks. I don’t have shoes and obviously do not care if I get wet. It’s at least traversable. Surf is smaller than I have seen in a couple weeks but what surf there is is breaking way outside again. I suspect this will be the usual pattern for a good while. At first the water does not feel too cold on my feet and legs as I walk to my spot but the longer I am here the colder it feels. Oh well, I’m past the point of no return now.

I head out into the water and with the high water level, I start swimming pretty soon. I seem to manage the initial plunge pretty well. I can tell it is next level colder than my last swim but I just put one arm in front of the other and keep kicking. Oh, and breathe breathe breathe. My breath becomes a sort of buoy keeping me afloat above the hypothermia. No ice cream headache today, but the water has a different personality to it here. It melds to my skin like an electric current. It is alive. The water may remain on my outsides but its energy moves all the way through me. I eventually feel the warmth, a sort of afterglow, begin to rise from deep within my core and I can only wonder how long will it last.

Before you know it, I am close to the south end of the beach. I’m feeling good. I just try to remain afloat on my breath and search for the warmth that hides in my exhale. It’s a pleasant feeling actually. I know, because I have done this countless times, that this warmth will ever so slowly subside over the course of the northbound leg towards Salt Creek. Yet another unreasonable thought arises - maybe today will be different. Maybe today the warmth will carry me all the way to the end. There is no relationship between this swim and reason. My less dominant reasonable self wonders just when do we cross that line between pleasant and challenging.

As I swim north, I watch my thoughts. I watch my fear bounce around as I wonder if I will die out here. I create space between my breath and those fears. From the perspective of my breath, the fears appear like a raging monkey. It’s hand is stuck because it is clenched in a fist inside a coconut shell. It can’t seem to gain the composure to realize that if it just relaxes its hand, it will be free. From my breath, my fears appear foreign. Are hey even my own or are they just some collection of thoughts that someone else gave me to lead me to believe that this swim is impossible.

I know I am now on the back half of my northbound journey. That threshold between warmth and cold is closing. Then I place my attention on it and somehow manage to find more warmth. When I pause before the final turn around and just sit here in the water, I feel good. I look around me and it is all certainly good. Then it is time to move again and it seems the end just can’t get here soon enough. The water visibility is pretty terrible. We had a good swell come through yesterday morning and the water is still churning. The water looks almost a dirty brown further inshore. As I make the final swim toward shore I can barely see my own arm in front of me. The tide has come down noticeably and there is now ample room to walk back to the ramp. I grab my pack and head on up.

I defer toweling until I reach the showers at the bottom bathrooms and rinse off first. These showers have the annoying feature that you only get about two seconds of water after releasing the button. Hey it’s a free shower. What do I expect? It gets the job done. I reach my car and head home. Over the entire ride back I am constantly shifting my hands on the steering wheel trying to find the warmest hand holds which seem to be endlessly shifting.