learning to fail

so we made a valiant attempt at snorkeling on catalina. upon arriving on the island, when i saw that snorkeling was and option, i jumped up and down and did a happy dance. it is just about my favorite thing to do in the world. i love fish, i love the ocean, i love looking at fish in the ocean. and i had done it before... this seemed like as easy prospect.

ha! no.

to start with, the water is only sort of warm on catalina... and by sort of warm, i mean warmer than northern california, but not warm by any one's objective opinion i am sure. we discovered this as we were going down the steps into the ocean (there was no beach in this cove) and halfway down we were already getting mouthfuls of salt water from the waves. having passed on the wetsuits, but seeing the few people in the water in wetsuits, we retreated to rent wetsuits.

significantly warmer, we made attempt #2. now, i wear glasses. generally in life, i keep at least one pair of contacts around for activities... such as snorkeling... that really don't work with glasses. right now, no contacts. so i played with my mask until I got my glasses wedged in, but the mask wouldn't seal. so i knew it would fill up with water, i just hoped it would happen slowly. the waves we still pounding the rocks and the pebble beach and we stumbled in. it was a fight to get out over the waves, and as soon as i felt like i was in water i could handle i looked down at the fish. as soon as i started to discover the joy of the fish, i was breathing in water from my mask filling up. and then the choking begins. so as i am getting my bearings breathing, i am being tossed around in the waves. in less then ten minutes, i headed back for the steps, getting bumped and bruised on the rocks along the way as i struggled to get out. my few minutes of snorkeling left me out of breath with my heart racing.

so the strategic decision was made to try later in the day. the locals said it would be calmer. they must have been kidding. we tried again and lasted no longer. for all the effort, for all the money (well it wasn't that much), i got a good look at one fish with blue stripes.

i pouted for a bit after all of this. poor brad, he put up with it. and in the over-analyzing, over-reflecting bit that i do, i realized that more than being disappointed that i did not see many fish, i felt like i failed. i was pouting about failing, not about missing the fish. so i took this opportunity to try to get friendly with failure. when people asked what we did that day, i tried to proudly proclaim that we tried to snorkel and just couldn't. i tried to relish in that one fish i saw. i tried to consider at adventure complete--traditionally successful or not.

and finally, i thought through what i learned:
1. always have a pair of contacts available for activities such as this.
2. the ocean is as beautiful in its power as it is in it color and diversity.
3. the power of the ocean is something to be respected.
4. keep trying new and scary things.... but know when to quit.