Daily Prompt: Immerse

Immerse

She wades carefully into the water, keeping an eye out for sharp rocks. Once she’s immersed to her hips, she dons her cap, spits into her goggles and rinses them in the gently rolling waves. She slips the clean goggles over her cap and adjusts them to fit snugly over her eyes. With one last look at the horizon she takes a deep breath inhaling the warm salty breeze and dives in, letting the water cascade over her. The water’s temperature is cool and invigorating. She takes two strong butterfly kicks and transitions easily into a crawl, settling into a steady pace. One, two, breathe…one, two, breathe. The rhythmic movement has a calming effect and with every stroke she feels the tension in her neck and shoulders ebb away.  The crystal-clear water and colorful seabed below give the optical illusion of swimming in a professionally decorated aquarium filled with multi colored corals and a myriad of tropical fish. She never gets tired of this panorama. Every swim is different, even if you were to swim the exact same path every day. Without warning, the current can change directions, the ocean can switch from dead calm to two foot waves and even the water temperature sometimes rises or drops a few degrees as you propel yourself forwards; swimming in tepid water you can suddenly hit a patch of icy cold water, only to ease back into lukewarm temperatures a few strokes later. The scenery below also changes daily; the different fish and sea creatures working like overzealous architects, redecorating the sea bottom to their liking. She swims further out to sea, the water gradually deepening from a pale soft blue to an endless dark blue. All she can see now are her own arms as they pull the water in her downwards stroke and thin rays of white light radiating upwards from the bottom of the ocean like sunrays in an inverted sky. She pushes on, her muscles straining yet seeming to caress the water in a sensual private dance. The darkness below suddenly seems to lift, different shades of blue now appearing in reverse order from deep blue back to the pale soft. A flash of neon blue zips below her; a school of tropical fish. She gives a few more powerful kicks, diving towards the shallow bottom for one last goodbye to the ocean below and emerges from the water on the other side of the inlet, completely rejuvenated.