Pre-Dawn Magic

Next Swims:

        Mon-Fri 6:15 am and 5pm

        Saturday, Sunday 8 am and Noon

Last Swim:  Friday 6:15

Water Temp: 55 (rounding up)
Air Temp: 60 
Clarity: Pretty fair
Waves: flat, slight rise and fall on return

Kru: Tatooed Lady, Showgirl, Mermaid Princess (MP fka Pool Noodle), Luna "Sunny" Laguna, Panini, Dragonfly

Shore Support:  Squeeze o'Showgirl

Could there be a more glorious way to kick off a Friday?  With a hiatus yesterday because of work/elbow issues, I was keen to get back in the water.  Driving over the Hoan in pre-dawn darkness, the Northwestern Mutual was not even visible, a Ninja blending into the background, only its name floating 40 stories high.  

I was a few minutes late to the beach. The combined sea/sky entity was opalescent, one of my favorite descriptive words:

                                    

Apparently my mood was a shared one.  Rounding the corner of the path,  animated disembodied voices floated up to me, chortling and full of glee.  

A few minutes later, I was able to see them more clearly:

Mermaid princess looks cold - before she even got in the water for her skin swim!

Tatooed Lady was first in and headed north.  At the rocks she turned and looked back at the rest of us lolllygagging on the shore.  I went next and Luna Laguna right behind me.  Luna seems to inspire multiple nicknames and all related to Celestial bodies, an enviable quality!  I think of her as "Sunny" because that's her personality.

Stepping in didn't feel too bad - I didn't have that recoiling feeling, not when I put my hands in either. I was skin (no choice) because my sore elbow would not let me don a wetsuit and gave trouble even getting on cap and goggles.  But I knew the cold water would be therapeutic.

With my initial plunge I didn't even feel cold.  I felt the blood rushing to the surface of my skin, warming me, and the water was warm and comforting past the rocks, as usual, and even warmer the further you went, beckoning insidiously. With each breath I watched a redeye sun peep a few more degrees over the horizon.  The neon pink and orange barbies of TTL and Luna floated on ahead.  The surface was gray, green and smooth, gently reflecting a play of colors and shapes, dark wood; green, red and orange leaves.  Shore sounds were distant and muted.  I reveled in this solitary amphitheater, free of any troublesome thoughts about work, or thoughts, period. 

I turned at Birches,  better to quit while ahead.  Heading back, I still couldn't put too much pressure on the elbow but felt the basics of my stroke technique return in a most hopeful way.  As one does, I began to dread the return to shore and the inevitable "Afterdrop" a term given us by the San-Francisco-Bay-swimming Fred, which basically means that while in the water you are ok,  it's only after you get out the you get really cold. Wikipedia has this to say:

Afterdrop is a continued cooling of a patient's [sic] core temperature during the initial stages of rewarming from hypothermia. Afterdrop is attributed to the return of cold blood from the extremities to the core due to peripheral vasodilatation, thus causing a further decrease of deep body temperature. 

But, as Fred says, hypothermia makes all your problems go away.  

 Post-swim, Sunny Luna and Showgirl were rapping back and forth about ear plugs, gloves and other swim paraphernalia - where did they get the energy?  I needed to channel available resources into  wriggling out of my wet suit while maintaining towel coverage -  accomplished easily when  the brain is not compromised.  The Mermaid Princess was equally absorbed.  The Tatooed Lady was last out, wtih an epic swim to just past Rock Wall.  Panini did a long therapeutic immersion as well.

Getting into the car always feels a little awkward - return to gravity, after floating in Dreamland.  But then - the endorphins - and all things Earth-wise feel possible again - even exciting -