Brayden Noh

Swimming in Malibu during high tide is probably not the best idea, but when you drive an hour from the one day off during the weekday, no waves are too high and no winter is too cold. When you arrive at Point Dume, you have to park at the state beach, because the cliff parking is very limited, and you also have to hike down to meet the shoreline. The state beach parking, however, was under construction, so I had to walk around 10 minutes to get to Point Dume, which is where I wanted to swim and free dive. At around 2:00 pm, the tidal range is going down, but waves are still huge. In fact, the two other people in the water were surfing in those waves. I, without any buoyant device, would have to tackle the waves crashing in the shoreline. From experience, I knew getting in and out of the water is the hardest with the diving gears on. I waited for a period in which the waves became somewhat calm, and dove in to get as deep into the ocean as fast as possible. Once you are a few hundred feet away from the shoreline, the waves are manageable and you feel like you are in those waterpark wave pools. When you are in the water, Point Dume looks even more magnificent than any other possible perspective, and the waves ramming into the bottom rocks of the cliff made it seem untouchable. Unfortunately, due to these waves, the visibility under the water was terrible. Too many sediments were being mixed with the seawater. Later, I was told by one of the tourists on the cliff, that there was a seal 5 ft away from me, probably curious about what creature I was. But for me, all I saw was the dark blue water and light blue sky. Although freediving was not possible, just swimming around Point Dume was enough to drive to Malibu from Pasadena.