7/4/2006 - The Why?
Why do I not only willing subject myself to freezing my ass off, but look forward to it?
I was born and bred in the tropics. A cold winter was one where the thermometer dipped perilously close to 25*C; if it dropped BELOW 25 then DAMN it was COLD!
And then for some insane reason to do with lifestyle and blah blah blah, my parents dragged me (kicking and screaming, I might add) to Antarctica. Well, close enough anyway. Looking at the mercury in the mornings has become a game which holds me with a morbid fascination - if it's near 5*C then it's a warm morning. I never, EVER thought I'd hear myself say that, but apparently people acclimatise.
And the water temperature? I did some spectacular dives over the weekend - all below 10*C. The water temp will still drop, given we're not in the heart of winter yet, and I'm waiting to see how low it will dip this year. Last year we hit 7*C on the beach by my house; I imagine this year it will touch 6.5*C if not lower given how early things have dropped.
I guess a lot of you guys reading this will be laughing at the whinings of a girl who dislikes the cold intensely. I dive in a drysuit, and I layer myself up so thick under the drysuit with thermals and trakkies and socks (at least three pairs most dives) and I'm amazed I fit into my suit! Thankfully I've lost a little weight in the years since I got my suit, and it's gotten a lot roomier which is great; I get to add more layers!
Still, this weekend just gone is the first time I've found myself on the boat with my hood and gloves on before the dive and wondering if I was really going to commit my soul to the deep given the sheer agony my fingers experience when I defrost with a hot water bottle and soup between dives. It's ridiculous, really, to be so sooky about the cold.
To my credit, it has been the coldest is has been for a long, long long time so I'm NOT just being wussy. But still. I dive with people that jump into the water in wetsuits. WETSUITS. That would kill me, I think.
I've only ever done two dives where the water temperature was above 20*C; both on the Great Barrier Reef. Most of my diving the water temp has hovered around 12-14*C, with the occassional jaunts a little further north where they might hit 18*C on a regular basis.
At this very point in time, where my fingers are literally blue with cold (I took my gloves off to type this) I'm really, really considering packing up my dive gear and moving to the tropics where it gets digustingly hot and sweaty and all you have to do to cool down is throw the gear on and jump in. And if you happened to have a job on one of the millions of dive boats up there, that wouldn't be a hassle!
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