A Mile in the Ocean

We drove down to Coronado on the third of July, to be there for the Fourth. It has become a family tradition.

We camp in the backyard of my favorite aunt, hang out with my sister, and walk and scoot all over the island-- a place, my uncle informed me, that once had more Admirals per square inch than any other spot on earth.

I learned strange family stories, like how one uncle I thought was an Air Force officer was actually a CIA agent working in South America for years as a mid-level Kentucky Fried Chicken manager. (Really? Unbelievable! How had I not heard this? And yet, when we met them, they lived in Langley. Hmmmm...)

But one of the highlights of the year, one of the events that keeps me on track, through good times and bad, is swimming the Coronado Rough Water Swim. In bad years it just makes me feel good. In good years, like last year, it is serious training for Alcatraz.

This year I felt a little cocky. I mean how bad could it be after Alcatraz?

Last year the temperature was 55 degrees. Enough to stop you in your tracks when you ran into the water. I swam in a wet suit last year and still couldn't breathe for a quarter of a mile.

This year I told myself if it was under 58 degrees I did not need to do it. The day dawned moist and wet. The island was wrapped in fog. And chilly. But when I signed up they told me the water was 65 degrees. Balmy! Like the Caribbean! Warm enough to go snorkeling!

So I swam, this year alone, without a wetsuit, and without even my beloved aunt. The water was pretty warm. It was strangely choppy and I ended up getting tossed around and a little disoriented, and swallowing a gallon of seawater, but I was fast.

Now I have stomach cramps from imbibing bad Mexican water washed up from Tijuana, but it was worth it.

The ocean always makes me happy. Always.

Even when I can't get warm for two days after.

Maybe there really are positive ions floating in clouds above the water, lifting your mood like a drug, as the surfers always claim.

The water carries me, it holds me, it tosses and plays with me, and I know, again, for certain, that the world is a magical place.