One doe
s not know the meaning of the world “cold” until one jumps headlong into an unheated outdoor pool, under a sky that is threatening snow (actually I swear it was snowing already), with a bucket of ice thrown in the pool for good measure…
In front of a Glacier…
It’s the last Glacier Bay of the season, and so our show host decided she wanted as many people from the team as possible to come and bid a very icy farewell to this most scenic of scenic cruises. Only four of us showed up, one of whom was our cruise director – who, much like me, was on the verge of chickening out long before we got in the water. Just standing on the edge of the pool was cold enough!
The aft deck pool is one of those double-layer deals, where there’s a tiled inlay around the pool inside the pool ledge, the water over that inlay only comes up to your ankles. We looked at that little slick of water and thought that something that shallow at least couldn’t’ be so bad…and then stepped down into it to walk up to the edge of the proper pool.
Freya but that’ was cold…
I remember when I was a kid trying to go wading in the bay across the street from my house, from there comes my arrogant claim of “I’m Canadian, if you can dip your toe in the water and your ankle doesn’t hurt? It ain’t cold”. Well this was that kind of cold. Standing there up to the ankles in icy water, you could feel the pain jolt up from the soles of your feet to your calves, cold pain, the kind of cold that generates the saying “so cold it hurts”. I looked at the CD standing next to me, and she looked at me, we watch everyone else jump and we’re still standing there shivering and on the verge of turning back, but the more people that go in the more obvious it is that we haven’t (more her than me, the CD is more known than the librarian obviously). So she reaches out, takes me by the hand and says
Okay, we’ll go in together. Ready?
No!
1…2….
SPLASH!
I don’t think I’ve ever been that cold. So cold that it shocks the system and you almost can’t find your way back up again, so cold it’s disorienting. But I managed to get back to the edge with startling speed, driven probably by the ice-monster that felt like it was trying to hold me back. One guest managed to stay in a comparatively long time, and I’m sure if the rest of us had stuck it out longer our bodies might have adjusted, but 4 seconds was enough for most of us.
Out of the pool, scramble for the towels, shiver for the picture…and then inside as fast as possible.
This! This is an example of how m-m-much I love you guys!
We l-l-l-o-ov-e you t-t-t-oo ma’am
Okay…hot shower time…
And we all went our separate ways to our different room and our waiting scalding hot showers.
Honestly, the things I do for this job!