Davis Midwinter 2012: The Swim

Before everyone starts giving me grief, I shall say it right now, I did NOT do the Midwinter Swim. I wanted to do the Midwinter Swim, but certain circumstances prevented me from doing so. Boo, hissss, excuses, I hear someone in the audience say? My excuse is, it was the second day of my period, and as all of my 2nd-day periods go, it was heavy. But what about tampons??? I hear another unbelieving cynic shriek from behind the crowd (See, I had thought of all these things beforehand). To that I say, TSS (Toxic Shock Syndrome to the unknowing) - I know the chances are slim to almost-none, but I'm not about to take such risks while I'm in the middle of nowhere and my medical team consists of a (proper) Doctor, a carpenter, an electrician, a diesel mechanic and a weather observer (all supposed nurses). Thanks but no thanks, I will pass on that tampon. At the end of the day, I weighed my pros (Antarctica, once-in-a-lifetime, pub bragging-rights, personal glory) and cons (blood, -18oC air temperature and -2oC water temperature, mess, stomach cramps, TSS, cold-induced heart failure, sticking foreign objects into places they shouldn't go, blood, cold-induced fainting, changing out of mess, blood, blood and blood) and decided that the effort involved in coordinating a 10-second in-and-out dip was just not worth the end result. So there, I did NOT swim on Midwinter's day.

Now that we have this out of the way, let's move on to the important stuff i.e. what constitutes a Midwinter Swim, HOW to do a Midwinter swim and the many reactions exhibited by our brave, brave band of 65th ANARE winterers to swimming in a -2oC ocean.

Procuring a Pool

The night before, the diesos of station and sole chippy were down by the sea-ice chopping out a hole through the 1-meter thick sea-ice that measured 2 x 2 meters. All was good and dandy, and by the next morning, we had The Davis Riviera Rest & Relax Sea Bath and Plunge Pool. As previously mentioned, air temperature was an eye-blistering -18oC, so grease ice will inevitably form at the water-air interface. Thus, the need for a pool boy to constantly agitate the water and scoop away bits of ice from the surface. Because, as you know, no one likes jumping into a bath with floaty bits of ice.



Pre-swim Bravado 



Yeah.

Entering the Pool

A ladder was provided, most people used it, a few did not.



The Plunge

Most swimmers did it the easy way: letting go of the ladder, eyes shut, straight in, head under water, straight out. One decided on doing some backstrokes and underwater dives. Whatever rocks their boat, I guess.




The Re-emergence

The highlight of my day as photographer for the swimmers. Watching them pop out of the water was the best affirmation I could have, knowing that I had made the right choice. It is anything as simple as climbing up the ladder from whence they went down, but of course, there are others that will deviate from the norm.



Our Deputy Station Leader, also Head Weather Observer and Davis-resident McGuyver realises that he only needs a pair of screwdrivers to get him out of the water. It served him well too.

Ok, so after most of station completed the swim (only 4 out of 21 did not swim; myself, the Chef, another electrician, and our Trades manager, who broke his ankle nearly 10 weeks ago and was told by the doctor explicitly NO SWIMMING), everyone headed back up to where it was nice and warm and prepared to change into our finery for the impending Formal Dinner. Standby...