Without a Paddle
It’s mostly sunny and warm out this morning and I leave the house a little after 10:30.
Looking at the web cam, the water looks pretty textured. It is getting late after all and the wind is up to 5 knots and climbing. However, when I pull into the beach parking lot, the water appears relatively smooth.
The sun just feels great. As I walk down the stairs I feel like I am moving within some kind of alternate universe. Just an hour ago I was in meetings, which although not horrible, they were meetings. Meetings talking about deadlines and how much work we can get done in a particular amount of time and all the while everyone knows that no one actually has the capacity to do said work. Now here I am at a beautiful beach on a sunny day and about to dip into 71 degree water and swim with the fish. These two worlds surely cannot coexist on the same cosmic plane.
Every step down these stairs is sacred and each one takes me just that much closer to my happy place.
I get to the beach and it is yellow flag. The surf report is saying there is 3-4+ foot surf but I just don’t see it. I mean there is something moving out there but it looks smaller than 3-4.
Surfline adjusted the water temperature reading yesterday from 68 to 71 which definitely feels like the right call. From my current vantage point, the water definitely looks like it is 71 degrees. I mean just look at it shine.
I walk down the beach a ways to my spot and then head into the water. A wave is just about to break and I dive beneath it and the water feels pretty terrific.
I’m wearing my “alternate” pair of goggles again today and now that the sun is out, it feels like I just updated my lense prescription because everything looks so clear compared to my old grungy goggles.
I swim south. The sun and the water feel so great and I can see these sort of tropical looking clouds in the eastern sky. There is a large piece of floating seaweed in front of me and I see a good sized Bass swim out from underneath it.
Eventually I intersect with a buoy. It’s Bob Marley. What? Bob Marley has been on the north end of the beach just inland of Big Bob. Are they moving these buoys around? I wonder if one day the Green Monster will just show up in some random location along the beach. RIP Green Monster.
When I get to the end I alternate between cursing at my new camera and worshiping the views in front of me. Then I head north.
I let my whole self take in the horizon before me. I open every pore to the water I am swimming in and through. There is an energy in the water that penetrates my skin and casts it away. The curtain that separates my heart from the blue light below me tears.
I become no one as I reach out for everything.
I swim through several schools of translucent Carabina. They swim between me and the dancing stalks of kelp anchored to the ocean floor.
Soon I see the red dot that is Big Bob in the distance, and as I approach I can see he still has not digested the same paddle he had yesterday. I note that it is a double sided paddle. Not an SUP paddle. I imagine some poor kayaker struggling to make their way back to shore without a paddle.
I swim around Big Bob and head south.
The clouds seem to be getting more dramatic here and…well…more cloudy. The light has dimmed just a tad from when I started but the texture of these clouds look pretty cool.
I finish up and walk to shore.
I don’t want the stairs to end.
I get to my truck and retrieve my phone and have a few chat messages from work. Looks like that alternate universe is calling me back.
