When the Ocean Loses its Bottom

I head to the beach at about 10:15 this morning and the skies are overcast. It certainly does not look like it will be clearing up any time soon. There is a light drizzle coming down as I walk to my car.

The beach has a very grey and somber look to it. The water looks dark and textured. There is no water on the ground here in the parking lot but I can feel a slight breeze and some moisture. As I walk down the stairs, I would not say that I am cold but maybe there is just a bit of a chill in this air. We are not breaking any heat records that is for sure.

The tide is high - about 5 feet, but it is on its way down. There are some fair sized waves breaking close to shore. The water feels particularly warm on my feet.

I’m waiting for this set of waves to clear but right as I think it has ended, a larger set comes in and breaks a little bit further out. I wait out that one and then make a go for the surf line. The water feels really nice. There is a cool spot here and there but I really cannot complain.

I am swimming south and leaning into the joy in this water. The water is so dark. It looks like I am looking down into pure black empty space. The water closer to the surface captures the light from above the water and casts a dark green glow upon my peripheral view. There are clouds of sand here and there that look like a billowing grey mass, but the center is just black. It almost seems as if I should see stars. I wonder if the ocean has lost its bottom and could I swim through to the other side of the earth. Somehow in this black void there is joy. It seems impossible and contrary to reason but then I guess joy is not always reasonable.

If I look up and around at the landscape that surrounds me, it is gloomy and looks like December. The breeze stirs the ocean surface and the clouds appear impenetrable. And yet…and yet everything about this place offers up a sense of well being.

When I get to the south end of the beach, my camera seems like it has powered off and is not coming back up. This is immensely frustrating and definitely works against the above mentioned joy and well being. I suspect this is related to the battery. I found it odd when I turned on the camera this morning without replacing the battery with a freshly charged one, that the battery indicator read 85%, but because of that I did not bother switching out the batteries. So something is up with the batteries or the battery indicator.

Anyways I am frustrated over the rest of the swim about the fact that I can’t take pictures. However it’s not like I don’t already have a million pictures of this beach under similar conditions so I don’t really feel like I am missing anything. You just never know what might happen. Maybe a humpback whale will come inshore here and fully breach. Good thing that didn’t happen!

I just focus on breathing out my frustration and enjoying the swim for what it is. I did this for two years without a camera and it was all good. I remind myself that no matter what happens here, if I don’t get a picture, it still happened. I focus on embracing the experience of where I am now and letting go of the memory and whatever technology I might use as a persistence medium of those memories.

I eventually finish up the swim. It is still just as grey and gloomy as it was when I started but I feel much warmer walking up the stairs that I did coming down.