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From KQED.

It's a brisk winter day on Albany Beach in the East Bay.

Carrie Ann Brownlee and I are sitting on a piece of driftwood,

overlooking a calm and flat San Francisco Bay.

I'm wearing my big winter puffy jacket.

Carrie Ann, she's in a swimsuit. In 2020 I had made the

decision to get back into swimming, wanted to join a pool team and with

everything closed, I just decided, well, we have a bay right here. That water

seems to be open and so I actually went down to to the Berkeley Marina one day on my own and just

hopped in. I remember just getting in and thinking like, okay, this is cold, but it feels

okay. She picked a landmark about 500 yards away, put her head down, and started swimming toward it. By the time

she returned to where she started, she knew she'd discovered something special. And then I felt

totally hooked. So I work a pretty stressful job. I'm a cardiac ICU nurse. And so really being in the water is the time that my mind is

quiet, and I'm able to just be in the present moment. You know, you feel every little piece of seaweed

touching you. You know, you feel the full chilliness of whatever the temperature is that day. And you get

really in tune with your body in a way

that I haven't found in other sports on land. Swimming in the bay is more than a hobby or a form of

exercise. It's practically a spiritual experience. Carrie Ann started out swimming 20, 30 minutes,

...