the Unexpressed Advantage

This week is vacation week in California. I'll post some pics when I get back, trust me, there are tons.

In the meantime I'll happily tell you that one of my major vacation objectives – to see and swim in the Pacific Ocean, was achieved today.

You may think, "what's the big deal with swimming in the ocean, you live 13 blocks from the beach man…" And I understand why you might think that, but if you do it's because you don't realize that even though Vancouver has plenty of frisky beaches and saltwater swimming, none of these involve any contact with the actual "ocean."

In fact, Vancouver is located on the east side of a little body of water, which lies between Vancouver and Vancouver Island, that I like to refer as, "the Strait of Georgia". Other people like to refer to it as that as well, which is probably why this is what it's called when you look at it on a map.

Needless to say, the Strait of Georgia is NOT the ocean: problematic when you love the ocean like I do. It's like being stuck in a desert and someone gives you SOBE to quench your thirst. It'll probably do the trick in a pinch, but what you really want is Coke Zero, I mean water.

So this leg of the trip is in a nice place less than a mile from Pismo Beach in San Luis Obispo, which is about as California as California gets; my kind of vacation. We went to the beach today and I was more than happy to run off and jump into the ocean. I made my goal one of the buoys about 350 meters off the shore, and off I went.

Swimming out, touching the buoy and heading back seemed simple enough, but I ran into a couple of problems…

1. The water is cold. I first realized this when I saw that the only people in the water had wetsuits on. The water was really cold. Much colder than Vancouver water. In fact, after being out there for a couple of minutes I was pretty sure that I couldn't make a swim of it. It was so cold I was thinking I'd have to let my body go numb before I could swim freely, and somehow that didn't seem like such a bright idea. So I came out of the water after a brief dip. A little later Luke said he'd be keen to wade in a bit, so I offered to go with him. For some reason I was feeling a bit more confident about the cold at that point, so I decided to make a go of it for a second try. I got out about 50 meters and ran into my second problem…
2. The water is cold. My body was doing ok, but every time I put my head down to stroke I got the equivalent of the Brain Freeze that one gets when drinking a frappuccino too quickly. I figured that probably wasn't a good idea for swimming either, but decided to press on while keeping my head out of the water as much as possible. Eventually I must have of adjusted, because the brain freeze went away and I could swim freely. I made some good distance before I ran into my third major problem…
3. I'm scared of buoys. Yep. You read that right, I'm scared of buoys. It's an irrational fear if ever there was one, but for some reason they frighten me, especially the really big ones like at Pismo. They're just sitting out there, floating ominously with all kinds of sea-gunk at the base. Tied with a giant chain to who knows what at the bottom of the ocean. I told myself it was ok though and pressed on. I got about 25 meters away from the buoy and my heart was racing, but I was so close. I knew I could sneak up on it, tag it, and then turn and swim like a mad trout back to the shore. I got about 15 feet away when I ran into my fourth major complication…
4. There was a sea lion swimming around about 10 feet on the other side of the buoy. Yeah, a sea lion. A first that seemed kind of cool, but as I treaded water there, watching the sea lion, it occurred to me that I really don't know very much about that sea lion. Did he like to swim with people? Did he bite? Was he faster than me? Surely he was faster than me. Was he protective of his scary buoy? All at once I realized that I was pretty scared. I was sitting there 10 feet away from a mysterious giant buoy with it's potentially crazy sea lion protector sitting on the other side. I made a decision. Run! I mean, Swim!

And so I tucked tail and swam back to shore pretty quickly. Mike and Luke standing on the shore happy to see me come back alive; they weren't really sure how I was doing out there anyway, what with all the stopping and what not.

I wasn't too bummed, I had forgotten my fear of buoys, and who can control the mind of a Sea Lion anyway? Plus I did get my swim in the "actual" Pacific Ocean.

I'm still a little determined though. I think I might take another shot tomorrow. Probably ought to wiki Sea Lions first.

DKR (pics coming soon).