The Gritty Virtual Assistant Blog

LOL, at least I thought I did at first.

I was taking an evening walk along the beach yesterday, and I saw something bobbing in the water about 100 feet or so offshore. It wasn’t bobbing in an inanimate way. I knew it was something alive, but it didn’t move like any seal or whale I’d ever seen. As I strained to see what in the heck it was, I realized it was a man!

He wasn’t wearing a wetsuit as far as I could tell so the first thing that came to mind was that maybe he was overboard. But there weren’t any boats or kayaks around so where did he come from, I wondered. He wasn’t flailing or calling out and didn’t seem to be drowning or anything. As I kept watching, I could see that he moved very leisurely. He’d bob for few minutes, then roll languidly onto his back and swim a few yards down-current. Then he’d pause again and just look around. A few times, he pulled his whole torso out of the water like an orca “spy hopping” and then slip straight back down under the water entirely. Just when I thought I must have imagined the whole thing, as he couldn’t possibly be under that long, he’d pop back up to the surface several yards away from where he was before.

I was dying of curiosity, needless to say! The temperature of the Puget Sound waters here runs in the low to mid 40s. This guy was insane in the bra-ain, LOL. I mean, seriously, you can die of hypothermia out there in no time flat. Who knew how long he’d already been in there!

So the investigator in me had to get to the bottom of things. I followed him along the shore for about half a mile. Before reaching the Point, where the currents get REALLY bad, he started heading for shore. And there he emerged, dripping wet, no wetsuit whatsoever, just a t-shirt, shorts and flippers with wetsocks underneath.

He looked like your average Joe: In his mid 30s or thereabouts, not particularly handsome or memorable in any way, a little paunchy. In fact, his name WAS Joe. I know that because being the nosy person I am, I had to get the scoop and marched right up to him once he hit land and started asking him questions, LOL.

Apparently, he’s been doing this for awhile. I asked how on earth he could do that, go that far, for that long, without a wetsuit and not get hypothermia. He said he hadn’t had any special training, just decided to do it one day and has been doing it ever since. He said you eventually become conditioned to the temperatures and if conditions are right, can actually stay out there about two hours. He added that, of course (pointing to his belly), a little insulation doesn’t hurt. I asked him where he starts and what he was going to do now (because he was totally drenched and there aren’t any towels on the beach, ya know). He said usually he would just swim back, but the currents were bad right then so he was just going to walk.

So I thanked him for the entertainment and told him to stay safe, and we shook hands and went in our opposite directions. I think stuff like that is just so cool. How neat to just decide to do something and then just go do it, no matter how crazy it might seem. He really was like a merman. Imagine how peaceful and spiritual, even, it would be out there, just you and the sea. I think it’s also beautiful that ordinary people are never as ordinary as they might outwardly appear.

Rock on, merman!

I only had my Flip with me, and not my good camera, so I couldn’t zoom in too much, but here’s a little video:

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