The plummeting

Left the house at 9:30 for the beach today. It’s a beautiful sunny day.

I’m anticipating a colder ocean today. Last night’s water temperature forecast called for “plummeting water temps” due to strong and prolonged West winds.

When I arrive at the parking lot, the ocean surface looks fairly smooth.

I test the water when I get down to the beach and it does indeed seem a good bit cooler today. It’s a warm day out so lets get wet! Not that I’d not get wet if it was cooler.

Making my way past the surf, I jump through a couple breaking waves and get pretty saturated - not a big deal. I then start swimming and I get the feeling one has of teeth against ice. Yup. It’s colder today.

After I am well past the surf I do notice a noticeable improvement in temperature.

The entire swim is a bit of a roller coaster both in temperature fluctuations and also bumpy surface.

The cold patches, which seem to make up a majority of the swim are pretty darn cold especially compared to just two days ago. The temperature forecast said it could get below 60. Well, these cold parts are probably pretty close.

It almost seems like it would be easier if the cold was constant. The constant adjusting and readjusting feels taxing.

I’m mainly just trying to relax and let my body feel the cold. Let it pass over and through me without giving in to a strong adverse reaction.

It is interesting to watch the mind in this cold water. There is a thread of thought that wants to drift into sort of a low grade panic. Then there is a sort of objective regulatory thread saying, “no big deal. Let’s just keep going.” I always find this fascinating because this conversation is not necessarily unique to cold water. It’s part of any stressful experience. The difference here is that I am willfully subjecting myself to this stress on my own terms. Some may think that is a symptom of some sort of psychosis but I consider it a sort of exercise of one’s grit muscle.

The swim ends and the warm sun feels good. Really good.