Infographic by Manuel Antonio Beach Rentals
 The proper word for “the sea” in Spanish is “el mar,” a masculine-gendered noun. However, the fishermen call it “la mar,” making it feminine, because they believe that the sea is a woman. She’ll take care of you, provide for you, even give you life, but if you ever cross her she can unleash a tempest so furious that you might disappear forever. The fishermen had it right—the ocean was to be respected, and I called her la mar as well, even though my Spanish-speaking friends always corrected me. She was my refuge, my loving esperanza whom I could spend a few eager hours with every day. The thrill of her company never once diminished. I wasn’t a fast swimmer and I certainly wasn’t graceful, but I plodded along, steadfast, unsinkable, like a tugboat. When I was out there no one could bother me, no one could reach me; it was just me and my thoughts. I’ve never felt as good as the times I was swimming in the ocean. On the surface the water was blue—a thousand points of light reflecting off every crest, blinding if you looked straight at it like trying to count diamonds. But once I dipped my head underwater everything was green—the color of shiny apples. Blue. I took a deep breath. Green. I plunged beneath. Eyes open because I wore goggles, I could see my hands, my arms, and the periphery of my shoulders as I paddled, frog-kicking easily. The sea floor wrinkled like wind patterns in the desert. I could see shells and the horseshoe outlines of flounder hiding on the bottom. Breathe. I came up and took in air, the one and only biological imperative at that moment. Blue. And then back in, timed perfectly as the crest of the next wave swelled. Green. When the sun was overhead rays of light pierced the water and reflected off the bottom, an explosion of glass suspended in time. Breathe. The sheer magnitude of the ocean was hard for me to comprehend. It went on and on forever. And the waves? Where did they originate? I guess the technical answer is off the coast of Japan—the Kuroshio Current swirling counterclockwise south of the equator, pushing up against the cold water Aleutian Current from the north. The result is that the water off the Nicoya Peninsula, where Tamarindo sits, is an average of 82 degrees year-round, bathwater. As long as I kept moving I wouldn’t get the slightest chill, even if I stayed in there for hours. Blue, Green, Breathe. I thought about how human beings have explored the cosmos even more than the depths of our own oceans, and yet water covers 71% of the earth. The Pacific Ocean alone covers a third of the Earth’s surface, far greater than the size of all the continents jammed together, with an extra Africa to spare. Blue, Green, Breathe. The deepest point, the Mariana Trench, is 6,000 fathoms deep, over 36,000 feet. If the Mariana Trench were a mountain instead of at the bottom of the sea, it would be on the edge of where the troposphere turns to the stratosphere—what we call “space.” Unbelievably, there’s life down there, somehow able to withstand the massive pressure and live in an environment where a beam of light has never once penetrated. Blue, Green, Breathe. Zoom upwards at 1,000 miles an hour to the surface and my act of swimming was basically skydiving into liquid sky, a subtle tweak of elements the only difference between liquid and gaseous form. When I floated on the surface, it was like I was suspended somewhere between free-falling out of the plane and the ground far below. I was swimming in sky, or flying in water, depending how you want to look at it. Blue, Green, Breathe. There are enough natural resources in our oceans: food, minerals, and energy ready to be harnessed, for every human being on Earth. It’s teeming with life, an energy force so big and ancient that it’s hard to deny that the ocean isn’t just a host for organisms, but an organism itself, possessing a soul. Why not? If a 300-year-old tree in the rainforest has a soul, if something as small and fleeting as a human being has a soul, then who can deny that la mar possesses a universal spirit that we can’t even comprehend. Blue, Green, I tried to wrap my mind around the idea that the wave coming toward me was all the way on the other side of the Earth just a week ago. It traveled all that way just to meet me, at this very place and time. Or maybe I spent my whole lifetime getting to this exact point so we could come together. Did I create that destiny? Or did something else? Breathe. I put my warm and fuzzies on hold because I was in the kill zone, so I needed to focus. I’d learned to duck-dive the waves—paddling straight into them and diving into their face, cutting through them to negate the tons of kinetic energy that each wave was eager to deliver straight down on my head. I knew that coming back through the foam in the kill zone would be harder; sometimes the tide turned against me or I’d be fatigued, so the same swim to shore would feel like twice the distance. If I mistimed a wave I’d find myself paralyzed in the trough, staring straight up at a curling wall of water. If that happened, I knew what to do: 1) form a cannonball, protecting my head and the back of my neck in case I get dragged over rocks or a sharp reef, 2) take a deep breath, 3) pray. So to get through I looked for the sets, groups of waves that came in sevens, according to an old surf legend, but in reality the number of waves depended on the storm that formed them. When I saw a break, a temporary calming in the sea, I swam hard, abandoning my breaststroke for freestyle to gain speed, hoping that my timing was right and my shoulders were strong enough to make it through. When a big set came in I swam straight up the pitch of the wave and did a barrel roll at the top, like an aikido move to diffuse all of that force, just enough to let it spin me skywards. I had fun, flip-kicking like a dolphin and swimming along the exact parallel where the waves broke so I was continuously high on their crest. I even tried doing flips off the back of the waves, but usually I got only halfway around before performing a comical wipe out, straight down into the valley of the next wave like I was jumping into an elevator shaft. When the wave broke and crashed it sent a mist of sea into the air, falling back down on me like drops of rain. Past the kill zone I paddled in another world where it was tranquil, the horizon rising and falling gently like the belly of a sleeping dinosaur. Everything was still. It was nothing but me and the sun and a gentle wind stirring big blue. Pelicans swooped down, unbothered by my presence, snapping at the flying fish that broke the water’s surface. The bigger the waves, the more determined the pull of the current, the more I’d feel at home once I’d earned my place behind them. No matter how many times I swam out there a jolt of electricity pulsed through my body, appreciation so vivid that I had to suppress a yelp. Surfers waited in the lineup around me. They sat on their boards, gazing west to assess the incoming sets, perfectly balanced so the tips pointed out of the water. I imagine that those times were golden for them. When they saw the right waves starting to form farther out, they began the instinctual paddle and effortless spin to gain velocity. As the giant awakened beneath them there was a perfectly choreographed dance, lasting only a second or two, where they paddled hard, sprang into a crouch like a jungle cat, and dropped in at exactly the right time and speed—in perfect control to take the ride. There were no other swimmers out there with them but they didn’t seem to mind my presence. Surfing is a closed culture, but a single loco swimmer was no threat, and a rare site. I might recognize a friend from town and say hi, and they’d flash me the shaka sign. Still, I gave them space, circling far enough around and conscious if the curl was going to carry their next surf left or right. I swam even farther out, to the school of fishing boats, vacated for the afternoon and anchored in a floating ghost yard. It was silent except for the sounds of rope straining and water lapping against the peeling hulls. I tried to count my strokes as I swam farther out past the boats, but lost count after a few hundred. I stopped and treaded water, looking around and realizing where I was: completely helpless, defenseless, and almost immobile, having to keep moving to stay afloat. There wasn't another person within earshot. What I’d basically done was take myself out of my natural habitat, where evolution gifted me with natural faculties to aid my survival, and fully immersed myself in an opposite habitat—traded oxygen and dry land for suspension in unbreathable liquids. I was, so to speak, a fish out of water. It was one of the worst physical predicaments a human being could put themselves in, so why did it feel so damn good? About 257 things could go wrong and only one thing could go right—I made it back to shore safely—so why did every pulse of my nature call me out there? I shared the Pacific with countless life forms: whales, eels, crocs who’d wandered out, stingrays, barracuda, poisonous jellyfish, seas snakes, turtles, and every kind of fish imaginable. But I thought about sharks. It wasn’t a matter of IF they were there, but HOW CLOSE they were. Every time I swam out into the ocean I voluntarily inserted myself into the food chain—and unnervingly low on the ranking. Big White, the Landlord, Man in the Gray Suit, Greg Norman, the White Death, Mac the Knife. Sharks. I was out there in the open like an unsuspecting white mouse dropped into a boa constrictor’s cage. The thought tensed me with fear, bringing fatigue to my shoulders and neck as I treaded water. I kept swimming. I was just being silly, I tried to reason. Cramping or being smashed by a rogue wave in the kill zone, drowning only meters from the shore, were far greater risks. The chances of getting killed by a shark were infinitesimal, only 1 in 11 million worldwide. But then again, that statistic factored in people who lived in Kansas and never even saw the ocean, and there were seven shark attacks for every death. What were the odds for people who lived in Costa Rica, on the beach, who swam deep into the ocean, by themselves, every day, and who’d had fish sticks the previous night for dinner? And how many of those attacks were never reported, either because there wasn’t enough of the victim left to confirm or because they were locals, so no one bothered? Gulp. There was nothing to do but surrender. I loosened up and kept paddling, calming my breath. If a shark wanted me there was nothing I could do to stop him from biting me in half. Anyways, it would be sort of cool to have a little run-in with a shark, to get a tiny nibble and end up with a scar. Just an itty bitty one, in a convenient place, like on my upper thigh, so it would give me yet another excuse to take down my pants in front of girls in bars. If I could arrange to get bitten by a very mellow vegetarian shark with a massive overbite, that would be ideal. It would be just a scratch really, but instantly I’d be part of the Shark Attack Survivors’ Club United (Against Sharks), an esteemed fraternity if there ever was one. My SASCU(AS) card would even get me a discount at sushi restaurants. I could get down with that. Surrender. There was no way to hold onto my fear, my anger, and swim long distances at the same time. The tension in my body, in my mind, would turn it into a mechanical struggle. But if I loosened up and just concentrated on the few things I could control—my breath and the consistency of my stroke—then I relaxed into it, acceptance washing over me. Blue, Green, Breathe. Acceptance. I reflected on that word and deepened my breathing. I was so tired of fighting against everything in my life, of always swimming against the current. When I was young I felt trapped, alone, like I was born into in a red room with soundproof walls. None of it made sense to me—the pain, the injustice, the random dice game of suffering in the world. When I was younger I so desperately wanted to reach behind the clouds and shake sanity into God, but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find him. Blue, Green, Breathe. Sometimes I swam so far out that the beach looked like a postcard, the people little flecks of a severed former existence. As the sun neared the horizon that fresco sky folded over itself like a mural on fire, pink and orange and purple melting all around me, sagging toward the contour where the ocean met the heavens. I wanted to keep swimming out, to go deeper, swim until I couldn’t see land anymore. How far? How far was too far to get back? I’d just keep going and let the sunset take me. That is how I wanted to end, to go to my peace. Blue, Green, Breathe. But if I could manage to collect enough moments like these, then life might just be worth living. Maybe, if I could learn to surrender, and accept, I might open up my soul enough to let something better in, and then the whole ocean could drown within me. Then it would be all right. Yeah, I wasn’t ready yet. I turned around, the sunset at my back, and headed in. Blue, Green, Breathe. I had a long way to go to reach the shore. By then I should have been fatigued, but the swim back was effortless, like I was holding still while the earth was spinning toward me, fate’s gentle conspiracy to bring me home. The dying sun felt good on my back. Blue, Green, Breathe. I realized that most of the problems in my life were from going too fast. Most of my defeats occurred only within my head. I used to stir up the waters, looking furiously for something, and then gaze down in frustration, wondering why it wasn’t clear. Blue, Green, Breathe. But if I’d been my own jailer, then only I possessed the keys to my liberation. Blue, Green, Breathe. So with each headfirst plunge into the next wave I released the flotsam and jetsam of my negativity, the hurt and anger and guilt that had been my anchors to drag for so long. Each breath was a silent prayer of healing cast it adrift, like messages stuffed into a bottle and floated into the endless ocean. Blue, Green, Breathe. I imagined all of those bottles floating behind me, drifting in the presence of that silky mistress the ocean, night and day, thousands of them, more than one could count. Eventually, they’d wash up on a lost tropical island, clanking and shimmering onto the beach, thousands of miles east of that very spot in the Pacific where a man had been shipwrecked, living wild and alone for almost 40 years. One by one, he’d collect them and pull out the messages, unfolding and reading each one. At first his face would register confusion. But as he read more he’d form a serene smile, then throw his head back and laugh, tears of joy in the presence of God who he’d final found: that mother, la Mar. For they all read, every single one of them, going on forever: I am free. I am free. I am free. Tamarindo, Costa Rica, surf, ski, snowboard, diving, pura vida, Central America, Nicaragua, San Juan del Sur, Amazon best seller, travel, adventure, backpack, hiking, sharks, Endless Summer, Robert August, memoir, fitness journey, globetrotting, perfect beach, paradise, spring break, expat, live abroad, work abroad, summer reading, around the world, great read, humor, laugh out loud, South of Normal, Pushups in the Prayer Room  |
Norm SchrieverNorm Schriever is a best-selling author, expat, cultural mad scientist, and enemy of the comfort zone. He travels the globe, telling the stories of the people he finds, and hopes to make the world a little bit better place with his words. Categories
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