The Fog Breaks

I was not planning on swimming today and I did not have an opportunity to run until after 3:00. So when I glanced at the Strands webcam out of curiosity before putting on my running shorts and shoes, I see a clear view of the beach - something I hadn’t seen since Saturday morning. After my Saturday swim, the beach fogged over and it has been completely greyed out until this afternoon.

I see a little bit of chop on the water but it’s not too bad. I know I won’t have a chance to get back to the beach until Thursday or maybe Friday so I change my plans and put on my swim trunks. I’m not able to actually get going until about 3:45. This is the latest swim I have taken in a while, and I’m kind of excited for a near dusk swim.

As I pass Doheny, I can see a fog bank way outside. As I approach Selva, I have a clear view toward Laguna and I can see the horizon to the west which seems almost novel.

I get out of the car and the air is pleasant. I can see the sun over the ocean and the water sparkles a path right down from the center of the ocean all the way to the white water. The wind seems to have come down a bit from when I was looking at the web cam. The surface of the water is by no means smooth but I don’t see any chop.

On the beach, it’s a mid tide on the way down and that 10 inch drop off of sand running down mid-shore here Saturday has grown to about two feet now. The water feels cold on my feet but once I am in knee deep, it feels a little more gentle. I start swimming and it’s cold but good. I’d say it is a little cooler than Saturday and is no warmer than 64, but it feels good to be here.

I’m heading south and surrendering my full self to the water. I try to keep my attention on the feel of the cold water against my skin. The coolness sends a charge of electricity through my body. I feel totally embedded in this other world so different from the one I was in just an hour ago working away on my computer.

I look ahead to the cliffs below the headlands and the light draws out the browns and the shades created by the bluffs uneven surface seems to highlight the reds in the rock. It looks so solid and it looks so clear. Everything looks so clear. I’ve grown used to the softness of the fog obscuring everything that the lack of it makes the detail of everything stand out. If I had some shears, I think I could trim the hedges out there at the end of Monarch Point this side of Three Arch Bay.

On the way back towards Salt Creek I pass lobster trap buoy after lobster trap buoy. Every now and then the water feels warmer and then cooler. I have some musical score playing in my head and I don’t know where it comes from. There are familiar yet distant memories and the voices of influential people in my life that create a sort of background murmer that I can’t quite make out and I don’t know if it is from the past or leaking through a window to the future. Perhaps it is from another life entirely. With the color and density of this light, this is all like a late afternoon nap which happens to be a thing of magic for me and something I partake in about as often as I swim this late in the day. Maybe it’s more like an anti-nap because on another level this swim is filled with activity.

I watch the water’s surface tumble and fall over my eyes and the underside flashes and rolls over my head. I can hear the sound of my arms splashing into the water in front of me. My legs kick and occasionally they cramp up which is unusual for me and I wonder if it is because of the later hour.

The water looks so dark. The surface is a navy blue and underneath is nearly black and I can hardly see anything except clouds of sand and shadows and a couple times I see the rope that tethers a lobster trap to its buoy.

It’s time to make my final turn around and I look about me and I am still in awe of the clarity and color all around. The fog is gone gone gone like it was never here and there is not a cloud in the sky here. The southern point where I was, just about 30 minutes ago, seems so far away and yet it looks like I could reach out and touch it.

I finish as my cramps grow more frequent. I’m ready to exchange kicking for walking, but what a great swim. I get out of the water and look down the beach and can almost see all the way through to the far side of the tunnel at the end of the point.