This was actually shot for a travel post elsewhere on my terror of swimming open oceans....which is why I will drive all the way to La Jolla or fly to La Blanca/Santa Maria/Colombia for a nicely sheltered bay; I have been swept out to sea in Hawaii and Brazil.

But I have a new car with a huge trunk that can and does now carry a wet box...I will say here, what the heck I am getting a bit weak...but you still gotta do it. Tuesday's swim up North was good and done because, without a wet-suit, I can't do water below 62 degrees.

Tuesday's Water Temperature

Santa Monica Pier 71.1 °F Los Angeles, CA 66.9 °F La Jolla, CA 59°F

There's your answer why I would swim sandy-opaque and open water. It was surprisingly nice swimming the pier during a sunset.

Nice.

Summer is almost gone and I haven't done a thing, so I'm pushing it.
there are reasons I am at this beach. When I first came to California as a young teen, this is where I swam and body surfed, and board surfed a little.

Later, I lived with my first real girlfriend here, in her apartment up on the hill overlooking the sea, (I was far too poor to have a place of my own).

Still even more later, I had my first showing and sale of photography at a restaurant here.

But throughout most of these decades I really didn't have an attachment with the Ocean as I do now.

It was nice to be in the water in Hermosa Beach near home, surprisingly warm, not Florida warm, but still warm enough to spend an hour watching the red sun slowly disappear into a darkening sea.

Before I swam away from the enveloping warm darkness and back to firmer shores.

Traveller