Open water

KQED Perspective

Swimming in the open water


Throughout the winter in the extended Bay Area, I elect to jump into the cold ocean water in my onepiece for a morning swim. It’s the most fantastic feeling of my day. It’s an ultimate extension of a "cold water on your face morning wake up", a challenge and communion with the unpredictable ocean. On cold mornings I enjoy the small thrill of knowing that I’m going to do the exact opposite of what my body wants - take off my warm jacket and jump in. Often when I return home from a swim and my partner asks how it was I declare “It was best swim yet”. And it feels true.

I didn’t always love the cold water. When I started swimming in the SF bay on a whim, I wore a wetsuit for the first year. It was only when I was peer pressured by the looks of older members in my swim club, that I finally lost it.

On rare occasions the sport feels like a boasting match - how cold was it and how long did you stay in? But mostly, it is immersive, solitary, repetitive, meditative. Splashing through the ocean is being a part of something much larger than myself.

I think sometimes that the only people who understand my obsession are the other swimmers. One of my friends commented that when he first met our local group he thought to himself immediately “yep, these are my people”. I agree. I once considered never moving out of San Francisco so I wouldn’t have to leave my open water swim club (I stayed a member at large). We range in age from teens to the late 60s (I think, I don’t even know!) though nobody seems to notice when we are in the water together. Most of them I hardly recognize in their street clothes.

I’m not the fastest, nor the most consistent, I've never done a truly long distance, nor have I know my friends the longest. I don’t even swim in a pool to train, I feel so restless and bored. I just want to be in the open water, and it turns out that is the only criteria to be a member of our motley club.

Here is to loving something so crazy, and finding other people who are crazy in the same way you are.