One diver’s experience confronting discomfort through cold-water sea swimming.
The beach
The locals refer to the weatherbeaten shore at Gurnard Bay as the beach, though standing on this “beach” leaves one with not a blissful connection to the sand and sun but rather a mild discomfort, a stale taste; it smells of ripe, rotting kelp and bitter brine, and the wind tears across it with ferver, leaving it stripped bare. Seagulls ride the thermals in graceless suspension—not a dance, but a fight forward through the gusts—searching for dinner among the waves. There are no shells, only stones slick with algae. There are no sunbathers, no sandcastles or popsicle stands or cigarette butts stuffed into cans of Corona.
It is no beach.
Around me, middle-aged couples in puffers and parkas walk small dogs with groomed fur; two girls ride bicycles along the parade; a construction worker with silver hair hunches over a styrofoam cup of tea. I stand in the middle of it all, the waves dribbling through the rocks beneath my bare feet. In the middle of it all, I undress down to my black bikini.
There is something to be said about swimming in a hostile sea. I picked up this habit of sea swimming shortly after moving to the Isle of Wight. I had no previous intentions of moving to England, of all places; I fear the cold more than I fear anything. In truth, I avoid it with through constant travel, cheating discomfort with a plane ticket, my metal wings escaping winter like a migrating snowbird.
Just a few months ago, I was living in Honduras—there, I worked as a dive instructor for the very first time. The island was magic. It was a community of like-minded escapees and sunlight junkies. I recall one day sitting on my porch, high above the treetops, overlooking the bay. The sea was calm that day, smooth and glassy; sailboats and catamarans dotted the surface, bobbing asynchronously. The wind carried newness, ease. I recall feeling overwhelmingly grateful, in love with my life and the gifts I recieved from it. I worked hard to be there, and I reaped the rewards with vigor.
Never did I intend to leave that place. Never did I think that gift would slip. But life has other plans, of course. Family duties called, as they often do, pulling us out of our sugar highs. I suppose my partner’s grandfather never intended to get sick, the way I never intended to leave my endless summer. My partner and I never intended for our money to run out—and yet, it did. As quickly as I found myself there, it seemed, resting among labored fruit, I found myself leaving on a red-eye flight to Gatwick Airport.
The fear
Some solace came in the belief the move was temporary—just a few months, we hoped—and to an island, none the less. I grew up hours from the ocean. Distance fostered a reverence for coastal life, a sort of put it on a pedestal type of admiration for islands, summer homes, surf towns, all of the Cape May chalets and Monterey Bay bungalows out there.
I came to understand, however, that not all seas are equal. The ocean I was accustomed to was decadent—warm, gooey, dripping with life and color and sound. It was teenaged summers and vacationing in the tropics and, more recently, an intoxicating part of daily life. I looked forward to living in a sailing town, assuming that it would be pretty much the same.
But upon seeing the Solent for the first time, the rugged sea between the mainland and my new isle, I felt bitterness. Anger. The water was colored like soap scum, as if all the suds that run off our skin as we shower ended up here, lapping against the rocks. Brackish waves carried a thick stench on the wind. The smell of oversalted boiling water; of shallow, storm-riddled waves that endured dozens of boat-crossings per day.
It was, simply put, not what I expected.
The Plunge
My partner suggested we go sea swimming. I found the suggestion ludicrous. I was aware at the time of the positive effects of cold sea swimming, conceptually—decreased inflammation, muscle recovery, a release of endorphins—but I did not care about that. That isn’t what this is about.
I feared the idea of putting myself through that. Discomfort, to me, is a personal sin; it is an error against my will, a fault within my perceived control. I am a steward of comfort, a chaser of the high that it brings. Why someone might choose discomfort was unknown to me.
And yet early on the morning of September 26, 2023, my partner and I headed to water’s edge. I suppose I wanted that first sea swim to allow me to meet my new environment, to gain an understanding of it. Gain some leverage over it. Thus we chose, for no reason in particular, to enter off a concrete slip on the outskirts of the beach.
There was a big blue sky that day, a lingering chill. There were seagulls and the sound of a ferry horn. We undressed to our swimwear; without hesitation, my partner readied himself to enter.
“Don’t try to make it easier,” he said. He took in a breath and jumped directly off the edge of the slip.
The cold
The coldness upon submersion is overwhelming; it consumes your senses, blankets your mind, drives you into unwilling panic. Sounds slow. At once, you remember the surface, breaking through with an audible gasp; you become unable to find a steady breath as blood surges away from your brain and arms and legs towards your needy, beating heart. They do not tell you this–that the fear is real, that it actually hurts.
Your heart aches. I was in pain, I was floundering. I betrayed myself.
And so, I realized in an instant this was about more than missing a warm sea, missing diving. I am a fair-weather individual. Not just on the surface as I’d once thought, not just regarding the literal climate around me, but on a much deeper level. I have always been the kind of person who must tame their environment; I desire control, order, routine, to make sense of what is happening around me. Predictability in the clouds, in the chance of rainfall. I need a climate that bends at my will, not to bend at the will of my surroundings. Fair-weather. Smooth-sailing. Even during a moment of confrontation, I try to self-soothe through the belief that I am confronting it, not the other way.
And yet, despite my tired efforts, I frequently find myself in periods of life that are… hard. Swimming in a hostile sea. We all do.
Often out of our element, moving cautiously through the days in a feeble state of self-protection: curled inwards, retreating further from what encompasses us, what presses in. Not what I bargained for. My surroundings overwhelm me when they are turbulent. And as a result, I find myself shielding against the unwanted, numbing myself to the next period of my life before I have even experienced it.
Expectations can be the death of exploration.
I would like to say it gets easier over time, but it doesn’t. The swimming and all. It does, however, become more manageable. I still yell when I toss myself into the waves, attempting to remain submerged for a few seconds, each time clawing upwards, breaking the surface with bulging eyes and an open mouth, gasping for air. Oftentimes, I cannot bring myself to jump in the first place.
But when I do, I always find that after a while, the cold melts into a stinging numbness. It is fine. It is tolerable.
Change is uncomfortable, but discomfort is not permanent. Every sea swim ends. In some ways, feeling bad can foster an appreciate for feeling just okay. After that first swim, we went home, and I took a lukewarm shower, and we ordered burgers for takeout and I got into my softest clothes and warmest socks, and we watched television while curled beneath a woven blanket, eating salty fries in the dim light of evening.
It was such a nice evening.
(written in January 2024)
Since writing this, I have moved to Grand Cayman and am working in diving again. The time I spent in the UK was one of the most difficult periods of my life. These sea-swims were only moments of confrontation within an ocean of vast and open confusion. I am grateful to be past it, however changed because of it.
Thank you for reading, and welcome.
