Salt Water Polar Bear

Hello everyone, I hope your week was great or at least bearable. We were lucky enough to have a gorgeous weekend (and are right now) last one and went to the beach twice. On the last day, I found my nerve and swam into the Gulf of Mexico, near a big pier and MAN IT WAS COLD. I find that swimming in the winter months of north Florida is one of my favorite things to do. I love summer, I love the heat and the long days, but winter makes everything snap into focus. You only have so many hours in a day (by the time we were packing up to leave at 4 pm. the sun was making it's way to the finish line), you have only so many hours of midday warmth (maybe) and my eye is always on the clock (which is normal for a type A Capricorn). So my more laid back family members get the benefit of me planning our days around nature and what is "out there" to do before night comes and brings the chill. 

So here's what it feels like to lay out and play football for hours in the warm sun and then dive into the clearest coldest salt water in the Gulf of Mexico in January:

Cold

Really really cold

Squeeze your chest tightly cold

Makes everything illuminated cold

You keep thinking the sun will warm you up but it doesn't

As you swim long laps yards out from shore in the most spring like clear water you've ever seen, you remember - damn it's cold.

It's really so cold that the surfers who have on wetsuits (we're getting some for next season's wave sports) paddle past you looking at you like you're crazy.

Even the manta rays we usually swim among are long gone to the deep, hibernating and thinking LOOK AT THAT CRAZY WHITE GIRL SWIMMING.

That's what it's like to swim right now in the Gulf in North Fl. Afterwards, I felt so good having soaked in salt water for the first time since November (my last swim) and now my bones are screaming for more.

More salt please!!