Fear of Breaking Waves

I've been swimming since I was little. But as a little one, my ocean swimming was off the coast of North Carolina, where I grew up.  I remember many a summer at the beach, playing in the water, and getting swept off my feet by breaking waves. The feel of tumbling in the ocean, unsure which way was up or down, with salt and sand in my eyes and nose taught me to fear the breakers.  That fear has stayed with me as an adult.

Luckily, where I swim now is usually protected and fairly calm.  Usually. Until it isn't. Like the day I'm writing about today, where there was a strong north wind. And a high tide.  And that led to three foot waves at Alki.  And Breakers. It was a day like this:

But this story isn't really about breakers. It is about friendship.  There is a guy I swim with named Jerome who is the "dad" of the swim club. The unofficial greeter, babysitter, lifeguard, bouncer, security agent, and cheerleader, among other things. He is an accomplished swimmer in his own right, having done an ice mile and the swim from Bremerton to Alki (a 10 miler). 

Jerome knows I'm afraid of breakers. And on the day in question, he said he'd get into the water with me, talk me through it, and help me get to the other side of the breakers, where I could play in the waves, or swim.

So I waded into the water. And immediately felt the force of the waves and the cold spray on my chest. I backed off, out of the water.  Jerome called to me. "Come on in, Rebecca, you can do it". And I inched deeper back into the water. I felt like I would drown. I felt like I would cry. I felt panic set in. I backed off again. And started in on the self talk, bargaining if I made it past the breakers for 30 seconds, I could consider it a "swim" for the day.  "Reebs," I said, "you can do this. Just do it." It didn't totally work. I turned toward Jerome for help.

Jerome is a large man. Both tall and broad shouldered. So he stood in the waves, literally letting them break over him before they hit me, and slowly walked me into the ocean. On the third try I was able to do it. I still felt the force of the ocean. I still had the cold spray hitting my chest and face. I still had the fear. But I also had the friendship, and someone rooting for me.

Triumphantly, I made it past the line of breakers and into the churning ocean. I swam for 30 seconds.

A true friend will try to hold the ocean back for you.

If the Whale can do it, so can I!

This Saturday I woke up not wanting to swim.  I didn't want to get out of bed. It seemed like too much of a hassle.

BUT, I had promised a friend that I'd be there, and say hello.  So I got out of bed. I wasn't sure I was going to swim, as I just wasn't feeling it. BUT I put on my swimsuit, just in case.

I got to the beach, and told my friends I wasn't feeling it. I didn't think I was going to swim. I've shown up before thinking I wouldn't swim, and always did. But this time was different. I just didn't want to.

We posed for the photo.

Then, folks started getting ready. I did not.  I drank more of my hot chocolate. Then, someone yelled "Orca!".  Immediately, everyone turned toward the water-- scanning for any indication of a whale.

And there it was. Not an Orca, but a Humpback.  I watched it surface a few times. I saw the blow. It was beautiful, and swimming.

I figured, if the Whale could swim today, so could I.

So I did.

Swimming through Smoke

Every year, a group of friends and I go away for Labor Day. And every year I try to get my friend D somewhere cool to swim with me.

This year we were in Stevenson, WA in the beautiful Columbia River Gorge.

We had a 6+ bedroom house high on a hill overlooking the river. It was a perfect place for a weekend getaway with a group of families.

About 5pm on Saturday afternoon, my spouse woke me up from a nap and suggested I look out the window.

There was a giant column of smoke from the hillside across the way.  By the time the sun had set, we could see the fire from our porch.

We were able to see individual trees go up in flames. The media was reporting that there were approximately 150 hikers trapped on a trail above the fire. We worried about them as we marveled at the power of the fire.

Sunday we woke up to smokey air quality and heat.  No one really wanted to go outside. It was hard to breath and ash was falling from the sky.  We spent most of the day inside, playing board games and reading.

Monday, as we were packing up, I was feeling sad about not having had a swim adventure. So I convinced D to go down and dip in the Columbia River with me. It looked like it was snowing on the way down to the river; there was that much ash falling from the sky.

That's D with the SUN above his head.  That's how smokey it was.

The water felt refreshing, as it was still early enough in the day for the air to not feel awful. We swam upstream for about 25 minutes. We got to a point where we basically were on a treadmill, swimming with almost no progress.  So we turned around and headed back.  I'm glad I got my swim in, even if it wasn't the greatest ever.  I'll have memories of the ash that day.

On the way out of town, I stopped and took this photo.  It accurately portrays the air quality that day.

The good news is that all of the hikers were safely evacuated.  The bad news is that a lot of a beautiful wildlife refuge has been destroyed.

CSO: Or why I didn't swim this weekend

I live in Seattle and swim in Puget Sound (or Lake Washington). Recently I've been swimming most often out of Alki beach in West Seattle.

Seattle has a dirty little secret. That is, with each large rain storm, the city releases thousands of gallons of sewage into the waterways, both Puget Sound and Lake Washington.  This is done to keep the sewage from backing up into the streets when the storm drains are full.  That's, on balance, probably a good idea.

However, I don't especially like swimming in raw sewage.  And so, when the rains are heavy, I check the city website for information on if the Combined Sewage Outflows (CSOs) have fired off.  If they have, I don't swim.

Here's the chart from this weekend, with my swim point marked with an arrow:

One might argue that the CSOs near my swim site weren't dispensing, so why not swim?  Well, I once got VERY sick after a swim with that logic.  So these days, a red or yellow CSO means no swim for me.

I hope to be back this weekend.  And, as the days are getting (slightly) longer, perhaps an after-work swim will be back on the agenda soon!