Getting into 53degree water can be uncomfortable to most but having a beautiful environment around you is key—it’s all about the mindset you are in! And also I don’t dive in—that would shock my system. I wade ankle deep for a few minutes until the most circulated part of my body becomes numb to the frigid temps. I splash water on my arms and face ...and then...time for the plunge. That’s when I get intimidated but then I think about open cold-water pro Lynn Cox (who I still want to read her books!) about swimming in Antarctica for a mile and across the English Channel. And here I am in my safe little cove with cute seals popping their heads up 100meters away. Before over-thinking everything and turning away all together I just go for it. It’s not easy but it’s the “not easy” that makes us feel the most alive in this life—and cold water does that for me. My sweet spot is in the low 50’s, that’s when I feel like I’m actually exercising my nervous system: to go numb, retracting your receptors every now and then with the cold, is vital to a healthy life. People even pay for this effect in the form of cryo therapy spa sessions. My spa is free, out here in nature...Meanwhile I’m already in the water, 15 minutes go by and the ocean feels less like an icebox and more like a cool glove enveloping my body, clearing my busy head of the mental luggage of that day—my past, my future fears, everything. Now I want to stay in there forever but it’s 9:45 and getting dark….
During the summers, not every body of water heats up to relative outside temps--use it to your advantage!
Wading in cold water is great for your nervous system. As a life-long enthusiast and cold water advocate (check out Wim Hoff if you really want to get inspired beyond me!lol), here are my 5 helpful tips for swimming in cold water:
1) Gradual progression (let your body get to know what’s about to happen) so get in half way and then out and then repeat, going a little further each time.
2) Mindset/breathing (knowing you are focused and in control)
3) Beautiful scenery (makes for a great distraction)
4) Ice baths are overrated: You can get the same cryotherapy effect in low 50s water as apposed to an excruciating ice bath (sub 50s!)
5) Think of it as excercising your nervous system: going to the gym is not that pleasant but we do it to strengthen our muscles, much like cold water does for our nervous system. I see cold water wading as more of a discipline, versus warmer water is as an enjoyment.
SUMMER DIARY ENTRIES, JULY 2019 // DESOLATION SOUND, BRITISH COLUMBIA
“The ocean is a desert with its life underground and its spacious skies above. In the desert you can’t remember your name because there ain’t no one to give you no name”
Those lyrics from Americana may have been written when the band members were high on something back in the 70s but it parallels today’s sobering experience of getting into an enchanting cove called Chatterbox Falls in British Columbia.
Chatterbox Falls is dripping with Hollywood nostalgia of a gorgeous nature so intoxicating that, from afar, her waterfalls and virgin wilderness seem to whisper “come hither”. This exotic lush green oasis is akin to the opening scenes of Jurassic Park, these daunting fjords towering over us and trapping whiffs of low-lying mist at all hours of the day. Suffice it to say, the purity of this form of nature from afar does not equate to it’s innocence up close. First sign you see when you get to land is “WARNING: Watch out for bears--everywhere”. Once we hit land I transform myself into the crew from Prometheus when they come upon Planet 2842—until one of them steps on fungus and inhales a microscope alien embryo from its pores. Then you know what happens next. But that’s when my imagination snaps back to reality: the only threat I’m going to have around here is not giving birth to an alien but having a black bear surprise me. But let’s return to the water, shall we, because that is what I really wanted to divulge in.
I am currently writing a children’s book about a mermaid and an orca befriending eachother and this has given me all the more inspiration to make it come to life through my pictures. I open my eyes underwater and think it will sting but am pleasantly surprised by how it doesn’t—becoming more of the adult Pisces that I am? No silly—and then I remember. When we were kids it was mostly chlorine-drenched pools that wrecked our sclera so much even after a few seconds of accidentally opening them we would come out looking like we had pink eye. Not after my swim in Chatterbox: after 45 minutes in I was feeling so euphoric about my swim I was getting a little cocky like “the ocean loves me, I could totally be a mermaid,” and right then I scraped my chest against the ocean floor. You see, the water was several degrees warmer starting a couple feet beneath the surface and everytime I got to the surface I couldn’t wait to dive back down again into the blanket of warm sea water. However, just skimming the ocean floor and coming back with a scraped chest was a subtle yet strong reminder that the ocean is not my home—it is to be awed and reveared. Its not a lofty Lisa Frank water park and neither is it the dire Deep Blue Sea movie—its something in-between those sentiments that is meant to be discovered on my own terms every chance I get.
Trepidatiously, I head back to the boat trying to push back thoughts of me playing Kevin Costner’s Mariner character in Waterworld and there’s a big mutant sea monster about to surprise him.
I felt moments where my imagination went to sleep (I love it when it does that) because there I was just floating and soaking in God’s nature right then and there—listening intently on anything I missed while back on land glued to my iPhone 10 screen trying to distract myself from His “Still small voice.” The loudness of life gets in the way of the high frequency supernatural communication I have with my Father in heaven. To restore that I have to be right in nature where no man-made object has been built but only His-hand in creation. That’s where you can experience God on the purist level. Someone wrote about Chatterbox that echoes my thoughts:
If you’re an athiest when you come in here you won’t be when you leave here.” Only God could create a place like this.
The water is murky—like a monet painting upclose or the Japanese photographic term boké. I tip toe along the bottom in the shallow spots to test for barnacles--which are ironically worse to step on than hot coals. I take a deep breath and with my fragmented vision I see shiny shells but I can’t make out the texture until I pick them up—I come to the surface and it’s an oyster! I love subsisting off the land—far from the mild thrill I get when stepping outside my Seattle apartment to pick from a rosemary bush. I proudly say I never have to buy rosemary in the Fred Meyer Spice aisle which gives me deep gratification—oh the small victories of being a city girl! But back to the oysters—I was so inspired by that moment because as a stewardess my boss spends gobs of money to be in this environment with his mega yacht and to go sports fishing it costs hundreds of dollars—even if you don’t catch anything that day! Money is no object for these people but they still like to be shrewd where they can be and if I can bring fresh free oysters to the dinner table that night I know he will be happy!
I have now been a yacht stewardess for 7years now and the glee of getting in the cool waters of Maine back in 2013 is still many years later and on the opposite coast. This is the westcoast version of New England’s sea playground. I recall Block Island, Nantucket and Martha’s but there is something even more exquisite about the great northwest that is as grande as it is miles away separated from the east coast.
I don’t like to swim, I like to wade and there is nothing more exhilarating—and mind-challenging—than getting in the dark cool waters of a place where no one else is swimming. It’s something that I have to push myself to do every time—because without taking risks I wouldn’t be writing this story right now. Movies like Jaws, Deep Blue Sea and Lake Placid have always been my guilty pleasures. I love suspense films when they have to do with predators of the deep that you can’t see. I relish knowing I am curled up on a comfortable sofa in full security than the characters on the screen. But then it becomes my turn to. I have to become one of those characters on the action screen that get in the water, heart palpitating and a rush of adrenaline –I am no longer on my comfy coach watching my heroines swim unassumingly as something lurks in the deep. I have a very whimsical yet meloncholic nature which does not help my getting into unknown waters. I can either terrify myself with illusions of mythical creatures beneath me or I can aleviate my fears by pretending that I am in a Lisa Frank world of vegetarian animals such as Unicorns that nibble on Pacific northwest ferns and friendly beluga whales that feed off seaweed and if at all curious they will come up to lick me with curiosity as I swim by.