I’m out of the house at 9:45 and the overcast has burnt off at my house but looking towards northern Dana Point it appears there is still quite a bit of lingering cloud cover. As I approach Doheny, the beach looks pretty sunny but it looks hazy and almost foggy not too far off shore and I’m hoping there will not be fog to contend with around the point.

Turning the last bend on PCH towards selva, things look much more overcast than they were behind me. The tops of the hills just east of coast highway are completely hidden in clouds. Once I get a good view of the water at Strands, I can tell fog is not an issue. I can see all the points clearly but there is not much blue sky to be found. That’s ok. It’s very pleasant out. Who knows, it could be crystal clear blue sky by the time I come back to shore after my swim.

I head down the stairs. Plenty of folks here today. I pass the lifeguard station and the water temperature is at 68. Wow things have really warmed up from yesterday’s 64.

I walk up to my usual spot. The waves look almost absent today. There is a SSW swell that is supposed to start building over the day but it is pretty minor and obviously has not amounted to much of anything yet.

I walk on out and step on something squishy but fortunately harmless and remember to do the stingray shuffle. I shuffle out up to my stomach and then start swimming. The water feels cool ever so briefly. Then I pass this invisible line and the water suddenly becomes warm where it remains for the rest of the swim. It is really quite pleasant.

I’m swimming north again today. The water feels a little less agitated than it was yesterday. I set my aim towards the end of Monarch point and just let my thoughts go as I swim and swim and swim. I stare at the shadows beneath me and exhale into the water and listen to the sound of the bubbles that travel out of my mouth and through the water to the surface.

All the way north I just see the grey horizon and the dark grey-blue water pulsating with a small northwest wind swell making the surface rise and fall as if the ocean itself is breathing. Periodically I look ahead of me to make sure I am still lined up with my aim. As I near the point below the Ritz I try to stay aligned with the beach club far ahead but the water and wind try to push me westward.

The clouds remain over Laguna and Three Arch Bay. There is a small blue patch that sits just to the east of the beach club over the inland valley where the golf course is. There are two mid sized motorized boats hanging out here. I’m not sure if they are fishing or diving.

Every now and then I stop to take a picture - what seems to be the exact same picture I took the last time I stopped and the same picture I took yesterday and the same I took the week before that and the same one I have been taking for the last year and maybe this time, just maybe, I’ll get it right.

I just keep swimming and giving everything I have to my stroke. All my hopes and dreams and fears and worries and all my meaningless day dreaming about the dream I had last night where I stole a book from my neighbor’s car and later realized that I stole it and was mortified at myself and then woke up relieved that I actually didn’t steel anything from my neighbor.

I swim just a little further than I did yesterday and turn around when I get to the little road/path that leads from the golf course to the beach just short of the beach club. Like yesterday, the swim back goes more quickly but today I finish the entire swim more quickly thanks to the lighter current I assume.

I feel like the swim back is further in shore than the swim out. I enjoy watching the shore and the large green lawn above the Salt Creek snack shop. Then comes the Ritz. It is so large. And now I’m crossing the point again and being drawn in by the gravity of the jr. lifeguard buoys. I pass the Bob Marley buoy and then there goes the bathrooms and now I see the Niguel Shore estates on the edge of the cliff. One after another passes by until here I am.

The water and sky and shore don’t look much different than they did when I got here. So much for that burn off.

I head on back to my car and fuss with my phone and camera trying to get my photos from one device to another. Then just as I am backing out of my parking space, here comes the sun as if the atmosphere here finally manages all of a sudden to clear out that final layer of clouds and BAM, the luminosity level jumps up several notches.