We’ve been changing things around, beach-wise. You see, we normally go twice a week on two standard days. Well, recently, on the first (out of the two) day we normally go out, it was pretty cloudy and no sun was shining through so Pa and Luke didn’t want to go down. However, I insisted the it was tradition to go down! So, after a while, I got them on board. Even though it was cloudy, it was nice because there was no wind.
We decided to go again the next day (even though it wasn’t one of the two traditional days to go down) because it was sunny. Unfortunately, it was also breezy. I’d rather have some fog and no breeze than sun w/ breeze. When it’s foggy, you don’t get warmed by the sun but any heat you make from yoga (which is what we do at that time of day on the beach) gets fairly retained. When it’s windy, you have to really work hard to build up enough heat to counteract the cool-down of the wind. After that, we have Tai Chi. It’s even harder (unless you do it at a really low stance) to build up enough heat. After Yoga, I did Karate instead of Tai Chi so I could build up more heat quicker. Then, it was time to dive in! The waves were pretty rough. Not as rough as the ones in my last post but they were surfable. However, I knew from last time’s experience that I wouldn’t have been able to make it in front of the wave in time. I mean, if I hurried and spent a bit of time, I could probably, but I was freezing so I just wanted to dive in and get out (that’s the tradition). So, seeing the end of a big wave (you know, the end where it turns fluffy white and ripples forward) coming forward, I crouched down in a huddled position and the wave came over me with more force than I thought. When I got up. I saw that Luke and Pa were still walking forward to get to the brunt of the wave. I saw Pa dive in but as the wave came forward, I saw Luke turn around as the wave crashed into him. The wave did crash along the backside of his body up to his head. Even though he technically got his head wet, it didn’t get really wet. The tradition is that you submerge yourself all the way to where you can hear the bubbly “submerged,” “wet” or “ears-full-of-water” sound in your ear. Just get sprayed in the back from the wave doesn’t count!
As the 6 month tradition goes, after you dive in the water, you have a hot cocoa and a day old scone at Marinis. However, Luke didn’t get his head fully wet. We decided that he could have a cocoa but not a scone. When we biked up the wharf and entered Marinis to order, Luke asked me if we were getting two scones. I said that he didn’t “complete” the tradition. He said that most of his head got wet but I replied that it was the principle of the thing. When we got to the day-old scone bin, we saw that there was only one. That answered that! I took it. We were talking and I heard some biker buddies (not my buddies) talking and one said, “did you see a scone in that bin? Did you take it?” The other one said, “no.” Anyway, we straightened the whole thing out and he got his scone back.
As we were waiting, we heard one of the biker guys talking to the waitress. He said, “do you get many swimmers at this time of year? Has the water warmed up enough?” The waitress said, “I guess. The people who come down to the beach use wetsuits so they stay warm.” One of the biker guys said, “Not really, I saw three guys in bathing suits down there.” If you haven’t guessed, that was us. . . wetsuits are for sissies. (I didn’t say that to them of course) So, we got our cocoas and drank outside. (as the tradition goes)
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