The sea diary begins
Spring bloom
Hello my friends,
It seems appropriate to begin this writing practice at the edge of a new season, days after the spring equinox. I’ve been reading other people’s Substacks for months, loving the range of writing that I find here, and wanting to start one of my own.
So, predictably, I begin with an entry about my obsession: getting into the ocean, even when it’s cold. I am taking you with me on a small journey I make as often as possible, in the company of dear and hardy companions.
Thank you so much for joining me.
With love,
Hannah
Spring bloom
Last week when I waded into the Vineyard Sound for a cold plunge it was sunny and calm, 50°F in the air, 42°F in the water. The sky was clear and the water seemed shockingly green, like the rich color of a glacial river. “Spring bloom,” said a friend who is also a marine microbiologist, when I noted the color.
We were floating farthest out in a group of about twenty-five other people who were plunging to celebrate Women’s History Month. It was a first entry into cold water for many of them, they were in and out in seconds, ready for warm towels and hot tea. But the half-dozen women I swim with every week stayed in, basking in the icy water and considering its particular hue.
It’s not just a trick of the light, this time of year, it’s life. We’ve had longer hours of daylight and windy conditions stirring up nutrients. The diatoms—photosynthesizing algae made of silica—are flourishing. Because of them everything else in the food chain can grow.
Above the shoreline, Cape Cod is still muted monochrome. The grass is faded yellow, the trees pale faun, and all the vines are brown. Buds may be swelling at branch-tips, but I know we’re weeks away from them actually unfolding. In my yard the crocuses poke through—yolk yellow and deep purple—and are swiftly decapitated by rabbits. Underwater, spring is well underway.
Over the weekend, I take a long swim with an open water group. There are seven of us, bundled in fleece-lined thermal wetsuits, thick boots and dry-sealed mittens, ready for an hour in the chilly sea.
Even though it’s calm and sunny, the water is still in the 40°F range. It takes a concerted effort for me to put my face in. The first immersions leave me breathless. I flip onto my back for a while, eyes closed against the glare of the sun. I try again, and again, until my face goes numb and I am able to stroke and breathe easily again. Even after swimming through three winters, the start of every cold swim is like this.
By the time my face is in, we’re passing through a scattering of rocks. The water still has a green tint to it, but it’s clear underwater. The seaweed has changed color in only a week. The sargassum is still rusty-brown, covering many of the rocks, but the rounded branches of green fleece are bright yellow and the rockweed is green. When we get to the mouth of the harbor the seagrass meadows are starting to gain color again, folded flat under the current of a rising tide.
We ride that tide into the boat channel. This is a small harbor, but the tide pushes us with a satisfying force. In the summer we have to avoid all the vessels that are moored here. For now, we have it entirely to ourselves. I am generally the slowest swimmer in this group, so I make for the deepest part of the channel, where I’ll get the greatest assist from the current. With it, I’m pleased to find I can keep pace with my friends.
When we enter the inner harbor the usually silty water is also clear. I see crabs, tucked in the sand and pink-tinted lion’s mane jellyfish—larger than last week—growing strong on the feast of diatoms. I don’t like swimming with jellyfish, but I’m covered head to toe in neoprene and my face is smeared with shea butter, so I hazard curious glances at them and their slow undulations.
In the shallows, people are gathering oysters. They have long rakes and bright orange hats and catch my eye each time I breathe to that side. We likely stand out too: with our bright caps and trailing florescent tow buoys, as we cross the harbor and make for the dunes.
A few days later, my microbiologist friend sends me slides of the diatoms that are making the water green. Some of them look like spiders with eight long skinny legs, others like beetles, some like beads on a thread. The slides come from an observatory south of Martha’s Vineyard that samples them directly from the water. They are too small to see with the eye, measured in micrometers, but this is what I’m swimming in, who I’m swimming with.
A week later, two days after the spring equinox, we are plunging again. There are only four women this time, meeting on a stony beach a little after lunchtime. We’ve slipped away from our desks to get into the sea. A strong northwest wind blows offshore, whipping as we strip down to swimsuits. At the shoreline, gusts are spreading the waves back, as if it was possible to stop their advance.
As we descend into the water, we are sheltered from the wind. It’s still deeply cold, causing our skin to tingle. We shriek as we sink in to our shoulders. But for the first time in months the water is warmer than the air. We float, heads out, looking at the horizon line, broken by white chop. There is sun on our faces and the steadying cold holds our bodies. In the sunlight the water seems greener than ever.
Beautiful, Hannah! Such gorgeous images and observations. xo