Floater

The four of us saw the same thing: the body of a child, floating face down, in the ocean. Three of us agreed that it was probably a child about 3 feet tall, and we all clearly saw arms, legs, a "bare" head, and I could have sworn the floater had on swim trunks. The only thing to do was to find someone at the life guard station and have them pull the victim from the ocean.

It took me a full 5 minutes to find a life guard because there was no way into the compound below the life guard station. In frustration, I finally asked the woman manning the "Save the Seals" table if she knew how to contact the guards and she found a phone number written on a scrap of paper inside the cash box. I called and reported that there "is a body, perhaps of a child, in the water off the steps down to the cliffs." When he asked me where I was, I told him that I was standing below the guard tower, but he needed to know if I was at the Children's Pool or somewhere else, and it took me a minute to communicate that I was standing at the fence, at the foot of the tower, in front of the porta-potties.

When a guard opened the gate in front of me, we took off at a hurry toward the walkway where my friends were keeping the body in sight so we could get to it. Quickly the one life guard became a dozen, with some deployed directly into the water, while others scrambled down the cliffs to get a line of sight. My friend confirmed that the body had gone behind the rocks from her viewpoint, so she lost a direct visual, but we knew where we had seen it and we knew where she lost sight of it.

It's amazing how quickly a crowd gathers and how large a crowd of on-lookers can become in mere moments. Everyone was straining to see what was happening from up top, but I was down on the cliff with the guards, providing them with details. I told them that it was, perhaps, a child -- maybe 5-6 years of age, judging by the size of the body I had seen floating face down in the water. However, I pointed out, I hoped that it was just a doll or a practice dummy for water rescues. Yes, I could clearly see arms and legs splayed to the sides, and I thought I saw swim trunks, too.

It took a few minutes, but suddenly one of the guards took off running, alerting the rest of the crew via radio. When he came scrambling back up the cliffs to where I was standing, he was smiling: it was a doll, a rather small doll, that he rescued from the shoreline. We were all relieved, but I was a bit befuddled as I doubt that I could have seen a doll that small from the sidewalk -- and I am sure the "body" I saw floating face down in the ocean was about 3 feet in length. The guards thanked us several times and assured us that they would rather deploy and find a doll than have anyone see what they think is a body in the ocean and continue walking.

Someone once made the point to me (forcefully and forever) that perception is reality, but, once again, it is clear that perception is simply what someone thinks, based on an individual's interpretation of what s/he thinks they see: it's not reality. Reality is that my 3-foot tall child floating face down in the ocean and wearing swim trunks was just a 12" doll. I'm glad that it turned out to be a doll, and not a child, but there is still a part of my brain that spent the night wondering if there still is a 3-foot tall child floating face down in the ocean off the shore in LaJolla!