Welcome to One Wild Ocean
One wild and precious life
I've always loved the ocean. In 2014 I moved right to the edge of it and now I can't imagine living anywhere else. When I have to visit inland I joke that I am dehydrating by the second. If I visit the hills then it's altitude sickness. The briny scent of ocean air has become so familiar that there are days I don't notice it. I have given up trying to keep the beach sand out of shoes, socks, car, clothes, carpet.
When I started writing Wild Waters on Substack I had been an ocean swimmer for about 7 years, and a pool swimmer forever before that. Swimming in the ocean is such a different way of experiencing it. There is nothing between you and the vast and unpredictable environment except bathers and a cap.
The exposure has a way of making you pay attention.
I wanted to share this experience and, hopefully, remind others that being an 'ocean lover' doesn't require a whole lot of expensive equipment.
The more ocean swimming I do the more I slow down to notice the world below me, and, as Mary Oliver asks in her poem "The Summer Day",
Tell me, what else should I have done?
By bringing curiosity into swimming I have been rewarded with fish and stingrays, octopus and wobbegongs. I have an attunement with the natural environment that moves beyond a weather report and - most importantly - I have joined a diverse and complex swim community.
One Wild Ocean is a place where swimming meets the sea. My mission is to inspire swimmers to be curious and to protect the ocean like our lives depend upon it - because they do.
