The Swim

Surprise

October 22, 2003

Yesterday evening just at dusk I went into a fairly choppy, roller coaster surf at Roaring Beach. In the dimmed twilight with the setting sun hidden behind darkening clouds the colors of water, land and sky were a steely grey. The air temperature was cold with a stiff breeze blowing across the water. It wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination a cheerful setting.

Yet, being in the water had its own comfort. Different, I thought, than what was being experienced by the lone figure walking at the far end of the beach and cutting a dark silhouette against the dunes.

balloon Catching a breaking wave and riding it in, half my body just keeping ahead of the frothy white, out of the corner of my eye and less than two body lengths away I caught sight of a blue object riding the wave in with me. Yes, there was a micro second when I pissed in my wet suit, but as quick the shocking surreal impact of the initial encounter turned into a laugh at the total incongruity of it all when I realised that what I was looking at was a balloon; a bright, blue balloon.

Unlike most balls or other floating objects, the balloon’s speed and movement in the water was being hampered by the dragging action of an attached long string, making it bob and duck in an animate fashion much like a seal’s head.

We both got to the beach about the same time, but before I could get to the balloon the wind was moving it up the beach faster than I could run while wearing flippers. But flip along I did.

From the far end of the beach, did the man on the log, hunched over in contemplation, gaze upon my end of the beach and, seeing a black wet-suited seal like adult figure wearing blue flippers chasing a blue balloon, have much cause for concern?

When he eventually left for the car park and drove back to his tourist accommodation, did he question what he had witnessed at the lonely Roaring Beach? If he had come depressed, did he leave smiling?

I did.

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Friendship trees

October 6, 2003

Exactly a year ago on October 6, I began the simple ritual of going into the surf everyday. When I first wrote about this to my dear friend Debra Frasier she sent back an email all full of worry. I replied, in part, with the following:

“I am standing on the beach looking out across Storm Bay and into 2000 miles of open ocean. I am thinking of what you wrote in your email about dangers and needless risks and the need to exercise good judgement.

I question myself on why I am down here, on this Sunday, in this weather, standing like a clown with my blue flippers and tiny green, blue and white boogie board with its four foot black cord strapped tightly onto my wrist. It all looks so ridiculous. But only in the same way that a devout atheist might look upon a Muslim kneeling down to pray on a crowded city street in the middle of the day and view this as ridiculous.

I am here to pray. It is a very physical manner of praying and it is guiding me into a deeper relationship with life.

I am here on this Sunday to receive the sacrament from the most holy of waters. The breakers coming in are not fearsome. They are a chorus of white angles rolling in the aisles singing their praises of this world. Before joining that great hallelujah chorus in the pews out back, I pray a simple prayer asking that we humans learn to revere, once again, this wonderful and incredible planet we all call home.

I walk into the baptism willingly and with a hugh love welling in my heart. I take a moment to acknowledge my humble gratitude to this great body of sacred water by dipping my face into her divine wetness fully. I come up kissing. I come up praising.

So don’t you worry about me, Debra. I intend to be around for the complete unfolding.”

friendship trees

This morning, both in honour of the completion of this first year of surfing and of my long standing friendship with Debra, I planted out a friendship circle of trees. Look closely at the photo above and you will see a tiny whitish circle with a tinier red wheelbarrow next to it.

This deliberately chosen site is out in the open, exposed, with infertile soil, prone to salt spray, intense winds, drying summer heat, cracking earth and rapacious rabbits, wallabies and even currawongs hungry for anything.

I wanted this site for the reason that friendships, especially long distant ones, need a more concerted effort to maintain if they are not to be lost in distant memories. In a very real way, keeping these trees alive in this setting is as daunting a task as keeping any important friendship alive.

I figure that since our friendship has seen tougher times and survived, these trees will grow just fine.

friendship 1 Around the circumference there are 27 tree placements; one for every year we have known each other (since 1976). Inside each of these 27 protective bags, two she-oaks have been planted side by side within the single dug hole. (How’s this for a symbol of a close friendship?).

All up, this makes for 54 trees or about the half way point between our respective ages of 57 and 50 (sorry for the public outing Debra).

As the seedlings are only about six inches tall at the moment, it will take fifteen or more years for each set of twins to grow large enough to embrace and interlink their branches with those next to them. Whether I’ll get the chance to sit inside this tight circle of woven friendships, we’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I’ll keep watering.

In the “after” time, I’ll be around watching and helping out where I can. Forever flying in with friends to check out the sunset.

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Day 333

September 4, 2003

Yesterday was day 333 of swimming daily at Roaring Beach. During the preceding night I was awoken by thunder, lightning and a noise only made possible by terrific winds howling through trees. The Tasman Peninsula was being hit with gale force winds gusting to 90 knots.

Trying to photograph mountainous seas in salt spray laden air while bracing against a continuous barrage of walled winds proved difficult through the whole day. The image above of an 8 meter (25 foot) breaking wave caught in a flash of dawn sun, although demonstrating a particular moment, does not fully convey the immense powerful story that was happening all around. Sound, taste and smell were equally demanding of attention as were numerous other senses.

As if this wasn’t enough sensory overload, I experienced an event that would literally define what it means to live “Life on the Edge”.

Despite the immense wildness and extreme potential danger of going into the surf, I did.

It was initially actually fun and completely different to any of my previous surfs. I would follow the retreating wave down the debris laden sand, wait an anxious moment and then catch the 8 foot tall frothing incoming wave and let it shoot me back towards the dunes and, several times, up into the creek bed behind the dunes, so powerful was its force.

After 45 minutes of mashing with this outrageous surf, I rather cockily got out of the water, feeling more than a little proud for having braved the severe conditions of this, the 333rd day of my commitment.

With flippers off and wrist strap undone, I was swept up by a wave…..

I had actually seen the wave coming; had even judged its ability to reach me. I had guessed wrong. The volume of the surge behind the wave was the unknown factor. It had stayed hidden until I found myself being lifted up off the sand, buoyed along like a cork.

Moments earlier, I saw this wave begin its roll up the beach and I figured there was enough time to skirt along the sheer wall of collapsed dune to a safer vantage point 100 or so meters further down. Jumping off from the rocky outcrop of about five feet tall onto the sand below, I had gotten about twenty feet along when I saw that this particular wave was now half way up the beach. From all the many thousands of beaching waves that I had seen over the past twelve years, I mentally calculated its speed and height and guessed that, at best, it might just reach my ankles.

Within seconds, though, the thought “Oh, shit” was severely flashing motor neuron warnings as I was suddenly, totally out of control, flippers in one hand, boogie board in the other and floating towards some hellish end to my life.

Lucky for me, though, the divine goddess of the sea decided to give me another chance and not force me to pay too heavy a price for my hubris.

The actual incoming wave was so massive in volume that, instead of immediately carrying me directly back to the sea, its continuous inward flow pushed me laterally along the vertically sheer wall of eroding sand dunes and, as luck might have it (or forgiveness) deposited my hapless body on top of the same rocky outcrop I had just jumped off. Then, rid of me, this wave washed itself back out to sea.

I could go on…… The point I want to make, however, is that I never panicked or later felt stupid or angry with myself. I knew I had been in real danger, but there was an acceptance to it. I had made a mistake in judgement, but survived to tell the tale. Hopefully, wisdom and humility were part of the learning.

To truly live “life on the edge” requires an equanimity or balance between safety and danger and knowing how (and a willingness) to engage either.

I believe we should all try to live by Thoreau’s quote “In wildness is the preservation of the world”. As without, so within. The wildness within our own personal worlds has to be nurtured so that we don’t entropy into becoming domesticated house cats or politicians passing legislation condemning our rain forests to charred hillsides.

Our soul’s survival requires it. Our society requires it. Jung writes:

“…the lack of meaning in life is a soul-sickness whose full extent and full import our age has not yet begun to comprehend”.

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Day 250

June 12, 2003

On October 6th of last year, I started out on what was to be a three week ritual of surfing daily at Roaring Beach. It turned into a six month ritual, then into a year ritual.

Well, after eight and a half months I still feel strongly compelled to make the walk from the house to the beach.

The photo I took today, just after the 250th surf and late in the day, captures a lot of why the inclination is still there to carry on with this watery journey: storm brewing, but still relatively calm with just enough warming sun to create a sense of real grandeur.

To be in the water, tossed around on darkening waves when a beam of focused sunlight hits center stage, really does feel miraculous. It is not easy to give up on this.

And why should I? One compelling reason to stop now is that the really cold water starts coming into Storm Bay from the Antarctic in July and August, dropping the temperature to 8C/47F (down from a summer temperature of 20C/70F). Surfing then can become a real act of endurement.

One reason to continue, however, is that by going into the mystery, even if cold, something valuable can be gained. This then becomes an act of endearment, not endurement.

I suppose this is what “tough love”is all about.

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Day 200

April 23, 2003

Last October, after the first three weeks of starting the ritual of surfing Roaring Beach everyday, I had assumed that it would end on the first year anniversary of the Peace Fire, April 6. Obviously, this date has come and gone and I still find myself walking down to the beach each day dressed up in my wet suit, carrying flippers and boogie board.

The intention, now, is to continue through autumn and winter until the full year comes around in October.

My motivation: simply to keep learning what can come out of a devotion to a sacred discipline.

The end goal of having surfed through a winter at Roaring Beach is not important.

What is important, is to:

– walk through the wall of inertia that confronts me each day;

– to understand how water is an extended part of my being rather than an environmental border to be crossed;

– to become more aware of the many languages spoken through the medium of water;

and, most importantly,

– to learn to love this world ever deeper by being more conversant with its many moods.

Besides, what a privilege and blessing it is just to live here at Windgrove and be able to embark upon this little pilgrimage to the beach each and every day.

How many people get a chance to surf 200 days in their whole lives, let alone 200 days in a row?

Then again, maybe I’m the only one who wants to.

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Day 148

March 2, 2003

What you’re looking at is what I had to look at before heading into the water for Day 148 of my six month ritual of swimming at Roaring Beach everyday.

March storm

With such a strong wind and squalls of rain blowing in, it was hard to take a decent photo, but I hope you get some idea of the mood of the ocean.

Yes, some days are better than others. And, this was one of them. To quote Thoreau: “In wildness is the preservation of the world”. Today could not have been wilder with hugh surf pounding into the shore and gale force winds hammering anything exposed out of the water.

Odd thing is that I’m finding this sort of day not as dangerous as less wild days because the surf rolling in is so big that it is almost impossible to get past about the forth or fifth break. One just gets pushed back into shore. The rips carry me out just so far before a six foot wall of white foam takes me in the opposite direction.

Exhilerating is too soft a word to describe the emotion that sweeps over me when I’m out in this water.

Funny that I’m always alone.

I don’t know about preserving the world, but I do know that after today’s swim my sanity has been preserved for a few more days.

So, come at me again Bush, Blair and Howard with your depressing, stupid ideas of war. I’m feeling more peaceful than ever and more willing than ever to keep on marching for peace.