Kelvin Wave

I am back in Dana Point waters today. I had three great San Clemente swims over the weekend and Monday, but I have since returned to my home base bachelor pad. I leave at about 7:00 and skies are overcast, but it is very pleasant out. I wonder what the beach will look like after I round the bend on the asphalt road below the stairs. I am hoping the sand level has recovered a bit since my last swim here last Thursday.

As soon as I see the beach, I am pretty delighted to see sand. Things have definitely improved but we are by no means back to normal. While there are no patches of cobble on the northern half of the beach, the water is still coming almost all the way to the end of the beach even though it is a low 2.5 feet tide. I’m not sure if this is due to lack of sand or the kelvin wave or both.

Kelvin wave?! You might wonder what that is. I just learned about it this weekend. Apparently it is a part of this whole super duper el nino event we are having. I’m no expert but apparently it is a sort of slow moving wave that you cannot see that travels under the surface of the ocean. It is a mass of warm water that travels east across the Pacific and then moves northward up the coast; so southern California will feel the effects first. The wave is expected to raise ocean levels as much as a foot. That is significant. It’s terrible for beaches and ocean front property. It could be great if you like warmer water. We may just have another “winter free” year in the water temperature department. I am going to be genuinely spoiled by later Fall 2027.

Speaking of warm water, as soon as I reach the beach and feel the first sensation of the water touching my feet, I nearly flinch and pull my feet away because I am shocked how warm it feels. It’s not warm in the sense of someone turning on the warm water on the sink faucet. However, when one looks at this dreary sky and then the expanse of the ocean, there is an expectation that things will be cold in the vicinity south of pleasant. So when I feel this 75 degree water, it just feels sort of out of place. Not to worry - I quickly come to my senses and manage to embrace the warmth.

As I walk into the water, it just feels almost unreal how warm this water is. It had been like this all weekend in San Clemente and I almost wondered if the water was just warmer down there. Nope. It’s just as warm here. We still have the phenomenon of small waves breaking right on shore so I wait for this set to pass so I can get in without a wall of breaking water just in front of me. I’m in and I start to swim north.

There is a small group of surfers at the north end of the beach. Odd because it is unusual so see surfers there. I wonder if this is because this section seems to be easily the most accessible spot on the beach. The usual Strands beach breaks further south have no sand on the beach. However, that kind of thing does not seem to be something that would usually deter the surfers. Given better waves, surfers will often endure quite a lot to get to them.

I sense that I am moving with the current as I make my way towards the Monarch Bay Beach Club. The journey seems to go by relatively quickly. Today I try to just let my mind rest on whatever thoughts might come and I try to observe and identify what shows up. This a lot more difficult than one might suspect unless you are in the habit of doing it. Not that being in the habit of doing it makes it easier. Rather if you do it often you are likely just aware of how difficult it is.

My thoughts do not seem to like to be watched. They want to pull my entire being into their pool. Thoughts are so much more than visuals that float across our mind’s eye. They are packed with feelings. Many of these feelings are so familiar that we hardly notice their presence but they are intoxicating nonetheless. We tend to think the same thoughts over and over and over again to the point that they become background noise. They weave themselves so deeply into the fabric of our day to day internal drama that they can become nearly invisible.

So I exert more than trivial effort to pay attention. What are these thoughts? What are these feelings? There are definitely feelings here for sure. Some are nearly impossible to pull out of the wallpaper that sticks to the edges of my mind. I can’t seem to label all of the feels around me. I want to but I just can’t. Some of these come through like a sort of echo and I can’t discern what the original sound was that actually created the echo.

It’s all like a kelvin wave. It’s an invisible wave that you can only see from a satellite in outer space. It inexplicably raises the surface level of our consciousness and alters the heat of our experience but we have no idea why or where it comes from or how long it will last or where it is going.