60 Full Moons

5 years ago, Mercè and me, Joan, decided that we would swim in the sea all year round, every day and without a wetsuit, regardless of whether it was too cold, too warm, raining or snowing; regardless of jellyfish (who despite their stings, could be pleasant company).

To say this experience was positive is an understatement. Entering in the middle of winter, with water temperatures dropping from 12 degrees, to 9 degrees, to 7 degrees (Loch Ness), and even to 4 degrees (Iceland) is enriching, and makes you willing to do it forever.

You enter the sea, your head full of thoughts sometimes negative, sometimes sad, other times anguished by the events of everyday life.

As you start swimming, the cold does its thing, your body temperature drops, but a mysterious force leads you to keep swimming, until eventually you stop being cold. Often the sea is stormy, the water clear and dark; but it always feels to be moving harmoniously with us. It accompanies us, embraces us, we feel its smell, its taste, and we continue to swim, looking ahead, enchanted, our mind attuned to the waves, completely at one with the water.

As the cold grips us, in that moment we know that we share the sea’s characteristics: its movement, its waves. We and the sea are in a strange relationship, one where there are no hugs, no kisses, no displays of affection.

Mercè and I don’t talk, we just swim, we share meters and meters, until those meters become kilometres… but we’re never more than a meter apart.

Now, we stop, look around, feel the cold, and decide that we must return to our small beach, the Recó de S’Agaró, on the Costa Brava, under a large hotel, the Hostal de la Gavina.

We’re nearing close to the sand; we get out; we’re not cold at all, but this will only be for 10 minutes…

We need to change out of our swimsuits quickly; even though our hands aren’t playing ball, we need to help each other to dress and warm up.

It is then that we intensely experience everything the sea shares with us; we feel serene, calm, hardworking, respectful, and suddenly all our worries vanish.

One more day, one more swimming experience, many hugs and an inner happiness that will ensure we come back tomorrow, and the next and so on until today.

60 full moons have passed, full of satisfaction, complicity, friendship and every time, I have the most vivid desire to repeat it whenever it is, wherever it is. Time stops when we are in the water, in fact everything stops, and there is only silence, cold and a total sense of well-being.

We are open and wild swimmers.

60 full moons, 60 !!!

Mercé Coll Bou & Joan San Molina (member of the Oceans & Human Health Chair, University of Girona)