Our Radiant Souls

 Next swims: Monday-Friday, 6 am and 5 pm  (Big Bay??)

Saturday/Sunday, 7 am, 8 am (Big Bay) and Noon (probably Big Bay)

Last Swim: Fridday, 6 AM - AT BIG BAY

Water Temp:  63 

Waves:  smallish, from the south

Clarity: crystal clear

Air Conditions:  high 60s, more humidity than Thurs

Kru:  Showgirl,  Lydia the Tattooed Lady, Linda the Lamprey, Cindy, Lt. MJ, Rachel, Ala Mode, Mitch, Dragonfly

Shore Support:  Sunrise person on jetty

Another clear celadon pre-dawn underlined with fuschia.  We douse headlights to meet up in the dark.  Heading down the path we hear a light breeze stirring the waves around.  Sky light is on when we reach the stadium but sun not yet up.  

Tacitly we line up  single file, one person to 3 square feet of rock, away from the path spillout to make room for other beach users.  People drape their brightly colored towels over the wall as  flags for our return.

TTL takes the temp - 63 sounds cold!  Showgirl has more ice in her veins than I do these days.  Most people suit up.  Rachel tries it, comes back for a nifty sleeveless shortie wetsuit. I go skin with wetsuit sleeves only.

Cindy realizes she forgot her buoy, and takes off running back up the path.  Procrastinating, I try to wait for her but eventually get sucked in by the seductive pull.  There are rocks a long way as you wade out, so I dive (shallower than at Klode) and head out past the jetty.

What is it we are starting to like about Big Bay?  Well, it is Big.  And open.  Massive bright white rock walls line the castles along shore.  Leaving our launch point, you go out past the jetty, then past a wall, then a long zig-short zag staircase,  then a blasted dirt hill, waiting for sod apparently, then a very tall clearly expensive wall, then a wall with a lovely greensward.  Beyond that (which I didn't go) the big white walls give way to a lower wall like we are more familiar with, marking the beginning of the Point.

Though there is some up and down, the water is very clear and the surface very calm.  I can see and hear other swimmers from a long ways away.

Sun does not rise til after I've turned back, it's back
over my right shoulder and heading further south every day.  But light cuts through the water and reflects expansively off the rocks.

Where IS that jetty?  MJ nearly crashes into it - "but there were some warning rocks" she recounts adding that she "portaged over" the jetty.  I prefer to give it a wide berth - oh, say 150 yards.  Then a sharp left to hone in on the bright signal towels, now a very long way away.

Coming in to shore is different from Klode - I try to skim over the rocks as far as possible before finding my feet.  Standing up is always interesting.

Back at stadium, we compare notes.  I am shivering so hard that getting dressed is a puzzle - my belongings seem to acquire more and more sand - with the soft sound of the waves and the cinematic sun almost magnifying us, lighting us head to toe, I have a sense of us as radiant souls, arrayed in a row.

The left turn (outer line):