Christmas Eve: Dolphins and Venice

My good buddy Norm and I had planned, from October on, to go swimming in the Pacific on Christmas Day while we were both visiting Santa Monica for the holidays. We both arrived on the 23rd, and because of weather forcasts, Friday the 24th seemed like the better opportunity for the dip.

There had been heavy rains leading up to our visit, and we were nervous that the beaches would be closed. There were no signs saying such things, so we braved the 60+ degree breezy air, put on our trunks, and jumped into the murky, frigid, debree filled ocean.

Having swam in the beaches surrounding San Luis, we knew that once your body numbs to the coldness, all will be well. Yeah, you might not be able to grip a baseball, but you can at least enjoy being pushed aound by the waves.

At one point Norm said, "Is that a whale?" I looked over to where he was pointing and saw a tiny fish flap above the wave. I was responding, "I don't think so" when he stated he saw a tail. A wave rolled in as he was saying that and it lifted us just enough for us to see above the next close wave. Between the two waves, eight to ten feet away, was a dorsal fin.

We both exclaimed whoas and wows, and as the next wave raised us again, less than a pair of seconds having passed, the fin was gone. Our eyes widened and we slowly retreated, trying to place the fin as either mammalian or shark. A moment of unease crept in as we discussed it and we moved closer to shore. We were in up to our nipples, a depth where you can feel like you're being affected by the ocean but also like you have some semblance of control over your circumstances. That depth, though, also makes you feel just a tiny bit vulnerable when you see a decent sized dorsal fin.

We made it back to shore with no problems after watching what seemed like more than a few fins from a safer distance, and contacted no dissentary from the run-off tainted water. We learned from our loved ones on shore that they'd watched an entire pod of dolphins swim slowly past, checking us and the surfers out as they traveled north.

Once shore side, we all took a walk down the beach to a place to grab a beer, and doing so, we walked through Venice Beach, an LA community that once had water filled canals. Those have since been filled in and paved over. The area, though, has tight controls on developmet, so the boardwalk is still a collection of head shops, tattoo and piercing parlors, bars, and patchouli smoke wafting along the outdoor zone. There aren't any high priced condos in Venice, a strange occurrance on a Los Angeles beachfront.

We did find, to our delight, that there were a few storefront doctors who, if you had any one of a number of symptoms that were listed on the wall, and the right amount of money, you could a prescription for medical marijuana.

What a world.