Faith Restored
It is 10:00 and I’m having second thoughts about swimming this morning. I’ve been sick the last couple days and still not at 100% - maybe not even 80%. I just know the swimming will be good (because it always is) and there is a thread of magical thinking weaving its way through my mind that the ocean will bring healing. At the time I attributed this to magical thinking but sitting here on the other side of the swim it seems only logical. Anyways as I’m staring at the floor in my bathroom debating the merits of swimming over not swimming, I am invaded by these darkish thoughts and suddenly it seems like I just can’t get to the beach soon enough.
After I arrive in the parking lot, I am delighted to see small holes of blue sky slowly fading into existence. I’ve been here enough and have been paying close enough attention to how these clouds come and go to know that we will soon have sunny skies and that just sounds utterly delightful right now.
As I start to walk down the stairs, there is this guy with two large hammers - one in each hand. It looks like they weigh 50 pounds a piece. I have seen him here many times before and I know this is part of his exercise regimen. I appreciate his consistency and dedication to this routine which is rather out of the ordinary. I’m curious just how heavy those hammers are and I’d just like to strike up a conversation and make some kind of connection with him. So I’m just a few feet behind him and ask “how heavy are those hammers?” No response. Nothing. Well I’m not exactly making eye contact (but c’mon who else is carrying hammers?) and I pick up my pace to get closer and ask again a little louder this time. Total silence. Hmm. Ok. I do notice he has ear buds in but I’m gonna just let this one go. If I need to ask any louder and a third time at that, it just feels kind of weird and maybe he can hear and just wants to be left alone. I can respect that.
When I get to the lifeguard station which is now open and operational, the water temperature says 62. Wow. Things have come down since Tuesday’s 70 just three days ago. This doesn’t surprise me. Winds have turned strongly onshore and the local buoy temps have been steadily falling. The Camp Pendleton buoys that were 70 and 71 on Tuesday are 63 and 64 today. I suddenly feel compelled to shout out to the lifeguard on duty, “62 - quite a drop from Tuesday!” He is friendly and much more responsive than the sledge hammer guy. He says “yeah and it’s actually not 62” as he grabs the board to edit the temp. I say, '“what is it now, 59?” thinking I’m being facetious. He says, “yep.”
I reach the sand just a few steps past the station and suddenly I just have to ask one question, “do you actually measure the water temperature?” He says that they do. He tells me they go out to about one feet deep of water every morning and fill a bucket and let a thermometer sit in the water for 5 minutes. Wow. I tell him about my conversation with a lifeguard a couple years ago who told me he usually just copies the temperature from the previous day and how that completely violated my trust in the reported temperature. He said he hoped he can restore my faith and that most lifeguards are good about actually measuring the water. He also said that the big lifeguard tower under the Ritz, which is open year round, is particularly rigorous about measuring daily. Boy am I glad I had this conversation. This changes my whole perspective on these numbers.
As I walk toward my starting point, I ponder the implications of the 59 degree reading. Hmm. 59? Really? He said he actually measured it. I’m still pretty skeptical. That just feels like such an extreme drop for this time of year and it deviates sharply from the real time buoy data. I’m oddly unbothered by all of this. I really want to get out in the water. I can feel it now with my feet and sure it’s colder than Tuesday but it still doesn’t seem like winter conditions which I am very familiar with.
I head on out into the water and wait for a set of waves to pass and then I start swimming. Definitely colder out here. Still I’m thinking more like 61ish. Then as I pass the surf, it feels like I pass through some kind of invisible barrier where the water suddenly warms considerably. Over the remainder of the swim, I’d say the temperature varies from 63 to 66 degrees. Those 66 spots, which are many, feel great. The whole swim is great.
The sun is actively melting away the cloud cover and this is just so very terrific. I’m heading south and about a third of the way down the beach I can hear and eventually see the jr. lifeguards out in the water well further offshore than I am. Then a little further I suddenly see this large black mass right in front of me. It kind of freaks me out and I quickly stop and look up to see a 12 or 13 year old girl in a black wetsuit swimming toward shore just in front of me. I excuse myself and feel a sigh of relief that this was not some kind of sea monster.
I reach the south end and everything is beautiful. There is still a thick mass of cloud to the south but as I stare north, the clouds are just these wispy things in a predominately blue and infinite backdrop. It is beautiful and I am filled with good feelings. It’s been a while since I have seen that point, the one between Strands and Salt Creek, sitting in the direct sunlight. It looks great.
The swim north is wonderful. It feels like the current and the temperature are constantly fluctuating and this registers against my skin like electricity - in a good way. I just can’t get enough of this sun. As I breath toward the horizon, I open up my insides to soak in just as many photons as I possibly can. I feel them crawl under my skin and reach my heart. I’m monitoring my health level. I still don’t feel completely right but I don’t sense that this swim is doing anything but good. It is so good to be here and I am so glad I came.
By the end of the swim, my hands are feeling pretty numb. I finish up and one of the lifeguards strikes up a conversation with me as I pass the little station. We comment on the swim and he asks where I keep the go pro. I just love connecting with people on the beach even if it is the most trivial of interactions. As I walk up the stairs, I enjoy setting my hand on the very warm railing. It feels so luxurious and almost intensely pleasurable. The shower up top which can be a bit brisk feels downright sultry.
