I left a little before 10:30. We are continuing our warm and overcast pattern. Like yesterday, there is some still moisture in the air. There is less patchy fog than yesterday but the overall humidity feels higher. I’m feeling just a touch not so great in the throat and stomach but it is so borderline and I have the day off and I really really want to get in the water. Maybe it will heal me.

I get to the beach parking lot and everything is feeling like some kind of instant replay from yesterday, which is ok, yesterday was nothing to complain about at all. Same weather and ocean surface texture looks calm. The lines rolling in to shore might look just a touch more pronounced, and as I pass the lifeguard station it is a yellow flag today. But still, really not much of anything breaking. The water temperature still reads 71 like it did yesterday and it still feels like it is 71 (or higher).

I shuffle my feet through the inshore water and then a set of waves comes in. It’s bigger than anything I saw yesterday but not particularly large. I dive under a couple waves and watch the sand on the bottom vibrate and blow outwards like the surrounding earth around the center of a nuclear blast.

I swim north today since I have an abundance of time. Now that I am in the water and moving, I almost instantly feel better. As I proceed towards and into Salt Creek, I feel like I have a lot of energy.

The water looks murkier today. I really don’t see much kelp and what I do see looks like it is leaning into a current of cloud. That current feels like it is heading north in my direction. It seems like I am moving quickly along the coast. Before you know it I am past the snack shop and the beach club is fast approaching. Part of me is tempted to go all the way to Three Arch Bay today. However I think I’ll do that on a sunnier day and I just don’t feel like taking that much time.

I do go further than I have gone in a while - a bit past the beach club - maybe half way between it and the cliffs at the north end of the bay here. Toward the north end, the water seems to get less cloudy but not necessarily any more clear. There still isn’t much to see.

I try to explore the darkness of the water and meld my mind with its featureless form. I try to find that place that seems to exist both in my mind and in the water - a sort of shared space where the boundary between self and ocean grows porous. Am I dreaming or am I thinking? I can’t tell and stop trying to figure it out. How long can I stay here. There are no lies or illusions or ambiguity here. Everything is as it should be.

I turn around and wonder how long the return trip will take and how much extra effort will be involved. I enjoy watching the shore along the way. Everything seems to remain motionless and yet somehow, every few minutes, the scenery completely changes. As if by some miracle, that beach club that looked as though it would remain to the east of me forever is now well behind me and I gaze on the golf green just above the beach.

I’m nearing the snack bar just before the Ritz and really starting to feel this workout in my arms. I am pooped, but I feel good all the same. I stop every few minutes to rest. I take the exact same pictures I took on my last stop it seems. However, each time the light adjusts ever so slightly. Sometimes it feels dark all over. Other times I can see a window of light shining from a distant point on the horizon below a dark ceiling of cloud cover. Then I start to swim again and the swim feels impossible until it feels like I can never stop again, but I feel compelled to stop and take another picture of that same vista just in case the light has changed again and I don’t want to miss it.

One thing is undeniable. The water is unbelievably pleasant. I’m trying to remember what time last year the water finally got like this. I can actually remember the exact swim but I just don’t recall when I took it. I’m sure I could find it if I sort through these posts but who has the time for that?

I stop again just past the bathrooms on the Strands side of the point. Then I start swimming again and I don’t understand how it is that I seem to already be about three or four houses down the beach. I swear there is a worm hole right around here. This seems to happen often right about here. Or maybe there is something in the water that steals the memory of the last hundred yards. I wonder what happened? Maybe I saw an Orca and now I’ll never recall.

I finally make it to shore. I feel exhausted and I feel great.