VENTURA, Calif. — Their sensible cars and light pickup trucks rolled into the beach parking lot before dawn Saturday. One by one, eight barefoot swimmers dressed in Speedo racing suits and fleece trenches emerged from their vehicles, waving to one another, rubbing their eyes, smiling and stretching. The bars and cafes on Seaward Avenue were dark and dormant, and a hairline crescent moon floated above the slumbering motel rooftops and rugged coastal mountains, silhouetted against a sky that was just a few shades more blue than black.
Once a week in the winter, and five days a week during summer and fall, a local swim group called the Deep Enders, an elite corps from the Buenaventura Swim Club, gather here to swim in the ocean before sunrise.