Selkie

It was looking like it could be another foggy morning with inadequate visibility for a swim but things cleared up around 7:30. I finally managed to leave my apartment at about 9:15. Like yesterday, the air was still vaguely hazy and the horizon was pretty obscured, but it looked like there was plenty of open air above the water to see all that I needed to see.

I park next to one of those huge Mercedes vans that is taking up two spaces. The air is cool as I emerge from my truck and the sky doesn’t seem like it quite knows what it wants to do. Looking one direction things look cloudy and in the other direction there is some blue sky and then after a few minutes the clouds switch sides. Whatever you want to call this, it’s pretty cool and interesting and I like it.

Coming down the asphalt just past the stairs, the color of the water is striking. It is covered with splotches of green and turquois that s just beautiful. There are some nice sized waves that are smooth and glassy and barreling just perfectly. They are not huge but not small either. A lone surfer looks like he is finishing up his session and a hand full of gulls are sitting on the water just inside the surf.

The water feels about the same as it did yesterday (good) on my feet. I walk out into the water and start to swim. I time this in between sets of waves so I make it out without any waves to dive under. The water does feel quite good. This is definitely on the warm side for November, but I realize we are on borrowed time right now. A storm is coming on Friday and we’ll see what kind of a dent that makes in water temperature.

Just as I make it past the surf, a tern dives into the water grabs a fish and exits nearly as quickly as it entered. It’s amazing how adept these birds are at catching fish. Not just the terns but all the local birds I see here. I wonder how they see them from so high above the water. What I’d really like to see is a bird under the water. This is clearly happening but it happens in an instant and I have yet to witness this. To get a photograph of such a thing would be quite the accomplishment.

As I make my way south down the beach, I am noticing how clear the water is. It is very clear today. When I am close to the south end, the floor seems unusually shallow for where I am here far offshore. I wonder if this is why the waves are so steep and almost breaking out here. I can see the patterned grooves in the sand as if someone has been tending a Japanese Zen garden here under the water. I, for one, certainly appreciate their handiwork.

I am almost at the end of the beach and I am seeing something floating on the surface close by. It looks dark and spherical and I wonder if it is a seal trailing me. I stop to look at it and see something kind of colorful pop up from the water. What is this? Oh it is a pair of fins. Someone else is frolicking around out here. I laugh to myself and they seem involved in their own little world. I definitely know how that goes. This place invites all who enter to frolic in their own little world. It’s as though the ocean is busy creating these multiple worlds for those who may enter at any moment. It sees someone new come in and it throws this sort of invisible spherical enclosure toward the unaware individual and unbeknownst to them they are caught up in this mini-habitat created just for them courtesy of the ocean.

I hang out below the headlands for a little bit and watch a pretty big wave pass right by me and I enjoy seeing it break in the offshore breeze spraying mist back towards me as if it knows I am here watching. I start to swim north and after about 5 or 10 minutes of swimming, I pause and then hear someone screaming and shouting and I think they might be speaking to me. Or am I just self absorbed? Both of these possibilities could be true. Then I see that dark spherical object again - a human head - and I realize it is talking to me. It is fairly far inshore of me and I shout hello back to him.

I continue north and it feels like the water is just getting more clear. I think this is the result of me being further out and past the cloudier water just outside the surf. This is super fun to watch. There is so much kelp and it feels like I am flying in between the tops of trees. I wonder to myself if there is always so much kelp here. I’m sure there is but now I can see it all.

The clouds and bits of haze are continuing to move about the sky and it changes mood on a moment by moment basis. It all looks super cool. It feels like there is more color below the water than above. The sun and clouds make the world above a world of haze and shadows making it feel like a black and white movie. Below the water I see a rich blue world with orange and gold kelp trees.

I keep swimming north and I feel like I am in some kind of alternate universe completely foreign to the one I normally inhabit and inhabit right now as I write this. I feel privileged to have the opportunity to see all of this. These huge moving clouds of mist float all around the ritz and the lifeguard tower up towards Salt Creek. I have no desire to think here and so I don’t. I explore every feeling and sensation that I sense in my body. I certainly have a lot to think about but this just doesn’t seem like the time or the place. I am in a world that wants to be felt. I want to become lost in the purity of this experience.

I reach my northern destination and watch the waves rolling through the main Salt Creek surf breaks. Everything here feels alive. I totally understand how primitive cultures project anthropomorphic qualities on inanimate objects. How could one look at this and see something lifeless? In fact who is calling who “primitive?” Just what is it that is lifeless here? I turn around and begin to swim back to my finishing spot - the same as my starting spot.

I reach the shore and touch down on dry sand close to where another individual is walking on the beach. He looks at me and asks if I was having fun out there. I respond with the obvious answers and then notice he is carrying these colorful fins and realize he is the proud owner of that dark sphere. He says he followed me for a while. I start to wonder if he maybe he is part seal because that is exactly what the seals do. Could he be a Selkie? A seal from Scottish and Irish folklore that can shed its seal skin and become human? I could just kick myself for not asking.