A soul-awakening swimming problem within the California wild

For my final day, I wanted to do something I’d never done before: swim straight out to sea. When I do open water swimming, I swim parallel to shore. This would be different. No markers. No sight line. Just the horizon. The currents. The waves. On top of this, we would be swimming from Bolinas, a quaint fishing town that is famously hostile to visitors and removes its signs to keep them out. This is where the Bolinas Lagoon opens out to the open ocean. Seals gather here, and the sharks supposedly come here to feast on the seals. I didn’t know if this was just a rumor to keep out-of-town surfers away, but the Farallon Islands just 20 miles south of Point Reyes are the winter playground for some of the world’s largest great white sharks. For this endeavor I enlisted the help of my friend, Greg, a local.

We wore wetsuits. He gave me a cozy neoprene hat to wear over my cap and goggles to keep my head warm. He also provided me with a special anti-shark amulet that I wore on my wrist like a watch. Developed in Australia, these wrist magnets repel the sharks, he said, and “feel like a punch in the nose” to the sharks if they get too close. Sounded good to me!

The day dawned foggy, however the low blanket of mist that hugged the land the day earlier than had lifted. I used to be frightened of swimming straight out and shedding sight of land. Greg assured me that even in dense fog you realize the place land is by sensing the course of the waves. That could also be true, however I wasn’t able to swim by the texture of the currents but. Greg additionally wore tiny flippers that seemed like duck toes and a neon bubble hooked up to his waist to hold our valuables and make us seen to boats. We agreed to swim out quarter-hour.

The waves have been huge. The surfers have been already out at a neighborhood spot often called the “patch.” We dove via the waves, swimming onerous between. The water visibility was nil — only a blur of yellow, brown and finally black. We wouldn’t be capable to see a seal or shark if it swam proper beneath us. I didn’t like the sensation.

But my good friend was beside me. Finally my shallow, panicked breath slowed, my stroke evened out and I settled in. Out previous the waveline we stopped. The early-morning sea was glassy and clean. It felt viscous, velvety and otherworldly. Pelicans and terns swooped and dove round us. Surprisingly, as soon as we swam out, I may see the land encircled us with lengthy arms. Stinson Beach stretched out to the correct, Bolinas to the left. We wouldn’t lose our approach. We swam farther out. Every few strokes we stopped to absorb the view. We have been simply specks within the ocean, as tiny as a velella or an anchovy, a part of an enormous, watery world.

Out right here my perspective modified. I noticed we may swim endlessly and nonetheless see the shore. We lay on our backs and let the swells gently carry us, then fall. The phrases of my father, a second-generation submariner, typically recited once I was a baby, drifted via my head: “Rocked in the cradle of the deep, I lay me down in peace to sleep.” We swam to the place the glassiness ended and the wind rippled the floor, 14 minutes out.

The magic of the open water expertise was higher shared. No GoPro or digicam can seize the vastness of the ocean for somebody again on shore. Or what it feels wish to trip the gradual heaving of the ocean, pulsing just like the heartbeat of the world. We got here ashore in an enormous set, swimming frantically in, then turning to face the waves so we didn’t get worn out. We swam till our toes touched the sandy backside and crawled out glad however exhausted.

My physique carried the rocking of the ocean for the remainder of the day. I may shut my eyes and be again there, gently rising and falling below the low, grey sky. I held onto that feeling so long as I may.

My good friend promised me that by subsequent yr, he would have extra our bodies of water and extra secret swims. Already he had provide you with new watering holes I by no means knew existed. But for me, the search had been a hit. Being in water every single day helped me regain my equilibrium. Surfers say the ions in salt water make you cheerful. I don’t know if it’s true, however I’m 60% water and I felt I had moistened my dry pores and skin, lightened the pull of gravity on my getting old physique and shed a few of the heaviness of the primary six months of the yr.

When I first went to my therapist a few years in the past, she instructed me the story of the selkies. At the time I used to be feeling overwhelmed with work, marriage and motherhood. Much of our work has been my journey again to myself. After my trip, I instructed her of my journey. She stated, “You were able to put your pelt back on. You’re spending more time in your seal suit.” Yes. On land and within the water. I’m. Sometimes the metaphor is the medication.