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They know its dangers and its whims. They know the reward at the other side of surrender.
I have always been drawn to the sea. First to its sandy beaches and sun, and later to its depths, rhythms, and mystery. When I can’t sleep, I visualize the deep sea and all its creatures living in salty suspension. When I feel lost, I imagine escaping to its surface and feeling its power beneath me. When I am overwhelmed, I think about the waves incessantly crashing. If the sea keeps going, so can I.
There are particular waves that come to mind again and again. In Hawaii, on the island of Kauai, inky black lava rocks form a craggily coast and an ocean pool called Queen’s Bath. In the summer the waves are gentle, but in the winter the swell grows dangerously large.
People jump into the waters at Queen’s Bath every day, even though it’s risky. I did so myself in the summer of 2018. I was more courageous back then, and hadn’t developed anxiety yet. In 2018, I wasn’t interested in dying but I also wasn’t afraid of it at every turn. Now the idea of jumping into any open water is almost paralyzing.
But earlier this year, I managed to do it. We were on a boat in the Algarve, off of the coast of Lagos. We’d just kayaked through the Ponta da Piedade and now the captains were inviting us to get in the water.
Our boat bobbed in the soft ripples of the sea. The water was blue and bright. It seemed inviting, but as much as I wanted to jump, I had the sense that throwing myself off the boat would end in sudden tragedy. Either I’d find that I’d lost all buoyancy or I’d be instantly eaten by a shark. These are the extremes of generalized anxiety, a calculating brain preparing you for the worst case scenario. In reality, the worst thing that would have happened would be a sting from the puffy pink jellyfish that had drifted past, which seemed of no real concern to anyone else.
Every day people have much riskier interactions with the ocean than a temporary dip at the captain’s suggestion. But even as I watched three young American kids from D.C. jump in again and again, it took loads of gentle goading from the tour guides to get me off that boat. First Jake went in on an “I’ll go if you go” dare from me. Then the guide looked at me, grinning and tan, and said “You said you’d jump!”
I suppose I need that kind of push to make a leap of faith. “You should” might be one of my favorite things to hear. I fish for it more than I fish for compliments. Tell me I can do it!
When I did jump, I plugged my nose as I always do, sunk below the surface for a second, and popped back up. I wish I’d had let that moment sink in, but instead I doggy paddled as fast as I could to the back of the boat where I pulled my way onto the loading ramp.
I’m pleased that I jumped, but I wouldn’t say I’m proud of it. Every moment in that water was completely overshadowed by fear, and the overbearing awareness that I didn’t know what lurked beneath my feet. I wish I had embraced the thrill of that unknown, rather than fight it. Especially given that I had expert swimmers as my guardians.
On the way back to shore, one of the guides, Ricardo, told us about his experience harvesting barnacles. The barnacles attach to rocky coasts, and the harvesters have to pry them off by hand. While one person pries, the other watches for big waves. “Never turn your back to the sea,” one professional harvester warns a flustered Gordon Ramsay. (Coincidentally, this harvester’s name is Ricardo, too, but it’s not our guy.) When the waves come, both people have to hustle out of the way or risk getting knocked into the water.
Ricardo laughs as he tells us all of this, a little twinkle of adventure in his eye. His uncle is a harvester too, he shares. On one occasion, the uncle wasn’t paying attention, got knocked over by a wave, and fell down a rocky cliff. Miraculously, he survived, but broke numerous bones. Once healed he was back on that cliff, prying barnacles off of rocks.
This is the type of courage I dream of having in and near the water — or anywhere, for that matter. Although when I hear a story like this, I’m not sure if courage is all I’m missing. To do something so dangerous with such casual, apparent comfort takes a fearlessness you might only develop growing up by the sea. I’m reminded of a video taken at Queen’s Bath where an assumed Kauai local is expertly swimming in a pool of water, despite the dangerous winter waves that could easily and dramatically injure her.
“Awe” succinctly describes my and others’ feelings towards the ocean. It’s a combination of terror and deep admiration that simultaneously pulls me to and repels me away from the water.
In her excellent book Why We Swim, journalist Bonnie Tsui explores the many reasons humans have been drawn to water. More than once, she neatly articulates this stacked feeling of fear, surrender, and freedom that open water inspires. According to Tsui, entrepreneur Vito Bialla poetically compared swimming in certain shark infested waters to “being in heaven and talking to the devil at the same time.”
This comparison accurately describes the polarizing affect that the ocean has on me. I want to swim in its holiness, but everything in me screams “Danger!” Should I have managed to tread water beside the boat for a minute, maybe my suppressed terror would have worn off enough to give me a taste of the heavenly side.
The ocean represents everything uncontrollable. On land, we do our best to keep our lives the way we want them. But the sea doesn’t abide. Our intentions are no match for the ancient flow the ocean. In a way, swimming in open water is a practice of surrender. It’s a conscious move into the things we can’t control. Maybe existing in that space could teach us how to be ok with those things.
I’m not one to feel ok about dying. As soon as the possibility of death becomes a reality, it’s hard not to dwell on it. But acceptance might be the key to liberation. Tsui says swimming has helped her process her anxiety over death.
“Swimming in open water is one small way of confronting that—of getting closer to the fire of wanting to stay alive, of warding off death, without the terror of having to do it for real […] The sea is a deep, alien place. There’s an energy to it, an element of danger that requires a giving over of the self…”
Could it be that some amount of surrender is what it takes to free me from this anxiety?
On the same trip to Portugal, we had another water adventure—surf lessons with JoJo. He’s a smiling, slender man with thinning hair and dark tan skin. He met us in Sagres and loaded us into his cargo van for a drive up the coast.
We parked at the end of a long, dirt road. Two disheveled adventurers stood by an open hatchback brushing their teeth. JoJo apologized for disturbing their morning routine, then proceeded to hand out wetsuits to the group of aspiring surfers. We squeezed into our suits, grabbed our boards, and made our way towards the water.
JoJo chose this beach because there’d be plenty of space for us, and aside from a few sunbathers and joggers, it was empty. The waves crashed wildly, overlapping so that sometimes there were three or four layers of them. Before we could get in the murky, sea foam green water (a color named thusly for a reason!), JoJo had to give us our lesson. The group gathered in a huddle on the wet sand, between tall, black cliffs and the rolling sea, all of us in half-on wetsuits and matching Billabong-sponsored rash guards. JoJo used the sand as his whiteboard, drawing out little surf boards and stick figures with his finger. Then he drew a timeline to demonstrate the order of events per wave. Something like:
Balance. — Find your center. — Time for yourself. — Choose your wave. — Paddle.
The final step before the water was to practice our technique on the boards. We lined up and paddled into the sand, popping up whenever JoJo gave the word. I was pleased to receive approving feedback from him and felt confident as I stepped into the water.
That feeling dissipated as I struggled to push my long foam board past the incoming waves while staying upright against the strong undertow. JoJo stood anchored and confident in the chaotic water, taking turns positioning each person in the group for a wave. When it was my turn, he prompted me to get on my board, which I did clumsily, and held me in place while we waited.
“Ok Katrina,” he said. “This is the time for yourself. Breathe Katrina, breathe.”
A moment later he launched me into a wave, and I wiped out immediately. Defeated but determined, I trudged my way back into the surf to try again. Every time JoJo stood stoically beside me, rooted against the undertow. It was like I was a baby being cradled in storm. I trusted JoJo’s awareness of the waves behind me while I laid dumbly on my belly, hugged tightly by my impervious wetsuit. From the corner of my eye I could see him squinting into the light as he selected my wave. Each time he repeated “time for yourself” and told me to breathe. He knew I was panicking.
It took a lot of tries before I succeeded. These attempts were punctuated by frustrated sobbing in the water, the sound of which I hoped the surf would swallow up. A few times I wrangled my board out of the water and sat pouting on the beach. Jake was an apparent natural and I watched him catch wave after wave, begrudgingly pleased by his skill.
Each time I turned to face seaward for another attempt, I felt all the forces of nature working against me. It struck me that learning to surf is about learning to work with these instead of against them. You can’t force it. Instead you have to get to know the will of the sea. And when you finally speak its language enough to align with its rhythm and ride the wave, it feels like flying.
I have recognized the art of surrender in every human-ocean story I discover. You have to let the ocean hold, push, or pull you whichever way it will.
I became acquainted with the competitive sport of free diving through The Deepest Breath, a documentary that follows Italian free diver Alessia Zecchini as she trains with safety diver Stephen Keenan to break a world record. These athletes plummet into the sea with nothing but their breath to support them. The divers are reaching depths of 80, 90, 100 meters. They’re plunging the length of an inverted skyscraper.
Free divers start by swimming downwards. But at a certain depth they reach negative buoyancy and gravity takes over, allowing them to come to stillness and ride towards the ocean floor like an arrow. They call this the free fall, and they use the technique to save energy. I’m spooked by the idea of letting the sea pull you in, but also enchanted by it. Free diving requires more than athletic finesse; it also requires the confidence to relinquish control when the time is right.
Before it became a competitive sport, free diving was a practical means to gather food and resources. My new, exiguous acquaintanceship with the history of humans in the sea taught me about the haenyeo, the diving women of Jeju Island in South Korea who, for hundreds of years, have harvested food from the ocean by free diving. Before each dive, they may pray to Jamsugut, the goddess of the sea, a ceremonial surrender to the ocean’s power to provide or neglect. The tradition is passed down through generations, and the women may continue diving into their 80s.
Like kids who grow up surfing, or families who harvest barnacles together, the haenyeo have a long-standing relationship with the ocean. They know its dangers and its whims. They know the reward at the other side of surrender.
The ocean is a teacher with a humbling godliness that can heal even the greatest depression, as one diving woman shares. My recent fixation came at a time when I needed saving from my own darkness. Watching divers plummet boldly into the unknown stirred something in me. Humans are incredible, determined, stubborn creatures. We’re not meant to live in water anymore, but we find ways to feel at home there. We’re forced to acknowledge that we’re living on its terms, which is something we can brush off on land. To stay safe in the water, you have to stay present. Like JoJo says, you have to find time for yourself.
That mindfulness alone is a simple lesson that’s sometimes hard to grasp. When things get overwhelming, start by coming back to what you know is always there—the breath, the present, and yourself. As champion spear fisher Kimi Werner’s dad advises: “Just relax, and remember how to swim.”