The Night Swimmer by Matt Bondurant Read Free Book Online Page A

planned to proceed along the southern edge of the bay, staying close to the shoreline, circle around the point, feel out thestrength of the current there, and then work my way east along the edge of the island.
    I dove off the steps and dolphin-kicked down into the green water, equalizing pressure with my thumb and forefinger on my nose. The bottom of the harbor was nearly uniform black rock, riven with ridges and crawling with scuttling crabs. Turning to face the surface from twenty feet down, I had the sensation of being submerged in a giant cup of green tea, the surface shimmering with light. I relaxed and let myself rise, feeling for the gentle tug and ebb of current, then stroked toward the harbor mouth, keeping within ten yards of the shore, focusing on stretching out and timing the sway of the sea.
    At the wide outer mouth of the Ineer I paused to get a sense of the current. I took twelve heavy breaths to hyperventilate my lungs then dove and made the bottom, and grasping a bit of rock I clung upside down, the crabs clearing a circle around me, the water colder here, reading sixty on the GPS, a deep ocean current pushing from the west, curving across the harbor mouth. The color shifted where the massive drop of the continental shelf began, and I looked down into the abyss of the ocean, watching fish and other small creatures spin through the darkening void. This was depth that I had never experienced, and it came pulsing out of the black, waves of invisible power, pushing through my skin until I felt it echo in my spine. When you are swimming in deep ocean water with decent visibility, at first the sea seems wide open and empty of anything, and this creates a strange feeling of suspension, floating in a cavernous void. But that is just an illusion. There is life there. After a while my eyes adjusted and I began to see the multitude of life that occupied the blank spaces of water, the minute, teeming, darting creatures and simple organisms. Then the perspective went; I saw things that could’ve been a few inches in front of my face, like krill and particle matter, or they could’ve been the distant images of something much larger, much farther down, the twisting shadows that writhe in the deep. I couldn’t tell if they were coming toward me, rising up to my position, or if they were headed in the other direction. I couldn’t tell if they were merely swimming away.
    I came back to the surface and allowed myself to drift. Bigger seas would require more care or I could find myself swimming for Spain. I swam a quarter mile out into the open ocean and looking southwest saw nothing but the wide bend of the horizon, thousands of miles of water ahead. Fastnet was a spindled finger in the distance, whitecaps breaking on its rocky shore. I was suddenly winded, a slow ache in my shoulders.
    Raising my head I saw I had drifted south a few hundred yards, so I set off back for the point of Pointanbullig on the eastern tip of the bay, my stroke going into efficiency mode, the long reach, roll, and pull, giving my heart some rest, till I reached the bay mouth and the bottom rose up. I did a few laps across the Ineer mouth, another mile, before coming into the inner bay, reaching the quay steps after two hours. The bay was still quiet and empty of people and I took a moment and enjoyed the heavy, blood-rich pull of my lungs as I sat on the mossy steps, breathing stentoriously, shaking out my arms, the faint sun warming my skin. Yes, I thought, this is going to work out well.
    After a shower and some tea and crackers in my room, I stepped out for a walk. Out front a pair of Welsh corgis darted from under the hedging and bounded about my feet. The corgis led me away and up the hill to the east, leaping over each other like a circus act, occasionally checking to see if I was still following. An old crone stood in a doorway watching us pass, later an old man puttering around a garden shed raised his head and squinted in our