Wait…is that a Shark?

I left just a little before 6:00 today. No early morning meetings scheduled so it is the ideal window for a swim. The sky is overcast and the air is ever so slightly drizzly. I have to use my windshield wipers a few times on the way to the beach.

I’m feeling pretty confident that the water will be warmer today than it was on my last swim Monday. For instance, the San Pedro buoy read 58 on Monday and today it is at 62. That’s 4 degrees for those who didn’t do the math. The other area buoys have seen a slight bump as well.

I get to the parking lot and head down the stairs. Not a whole lot going on here right now. It’s a little cool but not too bad at all. I can feel the muscles around my throat grow tense from the cool air and I try to focus on keeping them relaxed. It’s in between high and low tides but plenty of sand on the beach. There is a lone surfer out smack dab in front of my usual take off spot. It’s not where one usually sees surfers here and there isn’t a whole lot of surf to work with but enough. It looks small but fun.

It feels odd getting in the water right in front of him but I’m such a creature of habit especially when it comes to where I start and end the swim and there is no law or even code of etiquette against this. I send him a friendly greeting but he doesn’t respond. He might not be able to hear me over the breaking surf.

I start to swim south and immediately I can tell this is a different ocean than Monday. It is indeed warmer. I’m not going to say that it is actually “warm” per se but it kind of might as well be. It feels comfortable if not pleasant. I think I can just relax into this swim today and everything will be just fine. The water is smooth and flat. I’m keeping an eye out for new jr. lifeguard buoys. There are usually one or two on the south end of the beach. I don’t see any, but it could be any day now. The season starts in about 10 days.

I make it to the south end. When I turn around and look north, the point that borders Salt Creek looks misty along with the entire Laguna coastline beyond.

I head north now. Everything is grey. The water is just a little darker than the sky allowing me to see the soft horizon line in the distance. I just keep moving. About 9 out of 10 strokes are just like the others but that one stroke is special. It’s the one where I brush against a stray piece of sea grass or swim by a stalk of kelp and it looks as though I am flying alongside the top of a tree. It’s the one where I pass through greyish effervescent water into pure teal bule. It’s the one where I hear birds in the background, I stop to look and see nothing and wonder if I really heard birds or something else.

Well here I am at the northern end now. Still no new buoys from what I can see. I point myself towards that asphalt ramp and head towards the finish. About half way, maybe more, to the end, I stop to take a picture of some kelp and I think I see something moving below. I look down and to my left and see what I think is a huge fish. Wait…is that a shark? Everything from this point forward in my memory is a total blur. This much I know: it was way bigger than any fish I normally see, it was not a dolphin, it looked like it was only about 4 or 5 feet long which would rule out an adult or even most juvenile white sharks but I might not be seeing its entire length from this angle.

Honestly, I wasn’t interested at that moment to conduct an inspection. My mind is in survival mode. It’s hovering around a few feet below the surface. It is silver and shiny. It does not seem interested in me or at least not in making any sort of contact or close investigation (thank God). I’ll admit that I totally had sharks on the brain today. There was a shark that knocked a surfer off of his surfboard at T-Street on Monday and they closed down all San Clemente beaches for the rest of the day. The surfer was not injured.

In hindsight knowing that I survive, I so so wish I would have gotten a good picture or at least tried harder to identify it. I don’t even trust my memory now. It could have been a blue shark or even a tuna fish. I have no idea if either ever come so close to shore. I just don’t know what it was for sure. I think that at that moment I was pretty biased to the fact that it was a shark. I didn’t feel panicky mainly because I felt like there was nothing I could really do. I’m in this fish’s territory and if it wants to eat me, it will eat me, and well, it is not eating me. I do know that sharks do not like to eat humans and most attacks are out of curiosity. I wonder if not wearing a wetsuit makes me look less like a seal (which they do like) and thus less reason to be curious. I know that sharks are much more prevalent than we allow ourselves to believe and just because a shark sees you, does not mean that it will attack you. We, or at least I, imagine shark encounters where the shark appears right in front of you. However the reality is that sharks are super stealthy and are more likely to approach from below or behind. So chances are you’ll never see them coming. In fact, I would have never seen this “fish” if I hadn’t stopped to look at the seaweed.

I soon start swimming towards shore and shortly after I can’t see it anywhere. Just a minute afterwards, I see a group of swimmers who all have wetsuits and they are spread out right in this same area and well into the area I saw this thing. I don’t see anyone writhing in pain or screaming in fear or agony. So at this point I resume my normal swimming protocol but peer behind every now and then - no shark. There is a nice set of waves just as I am heading to shore that I enjoy and I’m ready to bid the shark farewell.

So I really don’t know. I’m just not ready to admit that I actually saw a shark. It’s also not like the water was crystal clear but it was not as murky as it has been over the last couple weeks. When I get to the top of the stairs, I see a fire engine and a paramedic truck roll into the cul-de-sac near the bathrooms. However, they take their sweet time walking out of their vehicles and seem super relaxed so I’m pretty sure they are not responding to any shark emergency at the beach. Also, they make their way to the office building next door so we are good there.