North County Times & Is Red Tide Leaving?
The brown water is gone! Last night I heard that the beach was beautiful and the red tide had taken leave, so I rushed down and got in just before the sunset. It had been seven days without salt water for me and I was suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms.
There was an event at the pier wrapping up-having something to do with cycling and selling things at the amphitheater. There were 2 motorized hangliders cruising around the area at about 250 feet. I haven't seen that before and it looked inviting.
I jumped in fast, expecting colder water than last week, and it was cold. Not head-hurting cold yet, but probably 60 degrees. I wore my thick swim cap and it kept my noggin' warm and helped slow down the heat loss from my body. I didn't get warmed up until I had been home afterward for about 45 minutes. The ocean was choppy-but it was a wider chop-one to two foot mini-swells every ten feet or so. I scurried out quickly through the surf, so as not to have to go through lines of waves twice. After clearing the surf zone I was dizzy and exhausted. I felt like I had lost my conditioning from where I was a week ago. I had to concentrate and tell my arms and hands what to do; I had to figure out how to breathe again; my legs had forgotten how to kick.
A neat aspect of the outgoing part of the swim, departing on the south side, was that I could see the two hangliders a bunch, which took me back to the old parachuting days 30 years ago in my mind. Briefly, one hanglider collapsed half of his canopy and I wondered if he would be in the water alongside me in thirty seconds. He recovered quickly and then they were out of my line of sight five minutes later.
Before I reached the end of the pier, my olfactory sense was tempted with the smell of burgers and fries from Ruby's Restaurant on the end of the pier. I don't recall smelling that before, but I must have.
The sun began to set before I rounded the pier, so on my left side breaths I had a lovely view of the orange sun with a brown haze at the horizon around it. The water was more stirred up off the end of the pier and all the way into the beach. Since I was swimming during the gloaming-that period of time after sunset and before darkness-I was able to have a right-side view of a 3/4 moon, which was cool. I saw a flash from a person taking a picture from the pier. I just had lots to see and feel on this swim. Two big waves threw me around coming in and lots of white water to swim through hard to hit the sand. No watch on my wrist but it seemed like a long time. A brief jog to the pier to say "Hi" to my wife and daughter, and I jogged up to my car. It was a hard, brisk wake-up call for mind and body-just what I needed. Wish I could have taken pictures but no time.
"The first time you quit is the last time you try."
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