Sea Lion Central

Back to the Strand today. I'm just going to take my chances with the grumpy Sea Lions. On the one hand I want to say that the chances of me and that particular Sea Lion intersecting in the big old Pacific Ocean are slim to nil but with my tendency to collide with buoys, I just don't know.

I left my house at a little after 9:30. The sun looks like it is just starting to poke through. Yesterday, once things seemed to start burning off, the marine layer disappeared pretty quickly and I am hoping today will be the same.

Once I get to the parking lot at the beach, it is already largely sunny. It's like there is a big hole of blue sky above with just a thin wispy layer of clouds on the outskirts. The ocean looks smooth and clear. From my current vantage point, I see no Seals or Sea Lions.

I approach the stairs and a mom is yelling from the street at her adolescent daughter who is in front of me that she loves her. She yells this several times and the daughter becomes visibly and vocally annoyed. There are so many family dynamic scenarios possible here and I don't have enough information to guess which is most applicable so I let my imagination run through some simulations. Maybe the mom is actually trying to be annoying and does this every time she and her daughter part ways in public. Maybe the girl is in jr. guards and does not want to be and is angry at her mother and her mom is trying unsuccesfully to smooth things over. Maybe the mom is about to disembark for the remote jungles of South America to embed herself with a tribe who refuses contact with the outside world. Her daughter finds this absurd. Part of her wants to run back and embrace her mom and never let her go but she knows that is pointless and feels abandoned and acts out here in anger.

It's not my place to ask for details and I proceed acting as if I don't care. I guess I probably don't.

About half way down the stairs the sun gains dominance over the clouds and I feel a warmth all around me in which I would just assume remain. Just how long could I stay right here until I get uncomfortably hot?

I soon see the beach and it is super nice. There is lots of sand on the beach and certainly plenty of people in the water. There are jr. lifeguards running very intentionally up the beach. They look like they have been instructed to run. They are not acting under their own volition.

I get to my usual launching spot and slide on my goggles. The water feels cool and I'm pretty certain it is going to feel good. I eventually and reluctantly jump all in. It feels like it takes longer to warm up than it did yesterday but soon it is all good.

I head south and notice I am swimming pretty close to shore today. There really is not much surf at all and the water surface is so glassy.

I get to the end and there is a whole troop of jr. guards on body boards just inshore from me and heading in my direction. They are well past the surf and on some kind of expedition. They talk amongst themselves about heading around the point. That seems a imprudent decision in light of the aggresive Sea Lion situation here. They would be heading toward Sea Lion Central. I trust their overseers know what they are doing.

I turn around and head back north up the beach. The water and sun feels so good. I can't feel the sun on my skin but I can feel it in my spirit. I'm irked about a few non major things here and trying to exhale my bad energy into the water. Surely the ocean can absorb my angst and it does.

I feel like I could maintain this stroke forever. I am totally free rigt here and the water is so perfect. I don't want to bother with looking up and checking on my trajectory. I just lose myself in the blue void both beneath and above me.

Eventually I do look up and oh my. I have wandered out quite a bit. I sharply change course and point myself towards the jr. guard tents in front of the bathrooms near Salt Creek.

I see two jet skiers idling in place near a boat. I also see a hoard of jr. guards paddling way out past me on paddle boards. I sense that they and the jet skiers are somehow connected.

I reach my northern terminus at the Green Monster. I stop and I can hear the commotion of the off shore hoard. It is pretty raucous I must say.

I hover here for a bit and take a few pictures and then I nearly jump out of my skin when I see this sphere just beside my head. Oh my God! It's the aggressive Sea Lion. He found me. Oh...no...it's just the Green Monster. Ok time to go.

It feels like I reach the end super fast and am kind of disappointed this is all over so soon. My swims all week have reeked of summer - a good thing.