The Lightness of Water
It’s been a battle with the fog the past few days. Yesterday’s fog didn’t really clear up until late afternoon and then came rushing right back in the evening.
This morning at dawn the beach looked clear on the web cams but the fog bank was clearly visible just off shore. Sure enough by 6:00, it was beautiful in my neighborhood a mile from the water but the Strands web cam was just a grey featureless canvas.
Fortunately things started to clear up at about 8 and I left here about 20 minutes after 10:00.
The beach basically looked sunny with some significant marine haze hovering on the horizon as well as near the shore.
It’s all good. It was warm both in and out of the water. All the local buoys from Camp Pendleton to San Pedro are reading 69-70. By the way, can you believe South Florida buoys are coming in at 101 degrees? I just can’t even get my head around that number.
It’s a very pleasant walk down the stairs and I see the purple flag up at the lifeguard station. Apparently this is for Sting Rays and not Sea Lions now.
I walk down to my launching spot. The water feels a little cooler on my feet but by the time I start swimming, I think that coolness is purely an illusion. There is nothing cold about this water.
One thing I have noticed is that when the water gets warmer, it almost feels like it has a different weight to it - it feels lighter. Now I am sure that it weighs exactly the same at all temperatures (or maybe not…what do I know?). However, it just feels different even if it is completely a psychological illusion.
The water is a beautiful deep blue today. It’s not super clear but I have a fuzzy view of the floor.
I have a new camera today. It’s higher resolution (48MP vs. 20MP) than the one I have been using. It is also waterproof up to 33 feet and I won’t be going any deeper than that. However I quickly realize that it still needs a case. Under the water the touch screen kind of goes berserk and just randomly swipes and clicks various options. The cases are all sold out so I’m just gonna have to put up with this for a while.
When I get to the south end of the beach there is a group of about 25 kids hanging out in the little rock basin under the cliffs. I wonder what the occasion is. I see one or two people on paddle boards a little further out from me parallel to those kids. Then I suddenly see those kids on body boards on the water making their way toward the paddleboarders. These must be jr. guards. Then it dawns on me that it would be pretty cool to explore that someday. I assume there must be some kind of beach-like access to that basin. I think you would want to only approach it under very low surf conditions and today definitely fits that bill.
My camera is kind of driving me crazy out here. It randomly goes into time-lapse mode and I have no idea why and can’t get it out. So I reboot it and then it starts up again just taking photos every 5 seconds. Finally I figure out how to stop it. The language out here is definitely R-rated and maybe NC-17. Good thing I am out of earshot from those kids!
As I swim north, it seems like it is taking forever to get to Big Bob. The water is fairly calm out here and I don’t sense a strong current.
I am attempting to treat my frazzled nerves (from the camera) by letting go into my breath. It’s just a camera. I am just swimming. None of this is a big deal.
I can’t get over how warm it feels out here and it is so pleasant with the sunshine. I wonder if this water feels light because it just kind of sits and rolls off of my skin. In the Winter it feels like it is coming at me with an intensity that presses in on me.
I see a pretty good sized school of bass about 10 feet below me. They are just shadows in this blue vastness.
Eventually I finally make it to Big Bob. I stop to fight with my camera some more. I then notice that I am drifting away from the buoy fairly rapidly heading south. Well I guess there is some current out here.
I head back to where I began. It does seem to be clearing up even more as the day passes here.
I walk out of the water and head back up the ramp. Lifeguard stand reports 69-71 which sounds right but I just don’t have any confidence in those numbers anymore after last week.
