“Off of the tour bus and into the food chain.”

It’s a common joke in Alaska, and tonight, we decided to join other co-workers and take the Polar Plunge and jump into the Arctic Ocean.  I’ve worked up here on and off for 11 years, and never done it, my co-worker Derek has worked 13.  He told me about it over lunch and I decided after a rather rough week, why the heck not?

Unfortunately, not knowing that this event was coming, I had to run to the gift shop in camp and buy a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and pray they wouldn’t be completely see through after my dunking.

We drove the long gravel road out to East Dock, both of us marveling at the fact we had never been out there in the summer.  I’ve been out there countless times in winter, in the dark, helping with generators and other electrical equipment.  I’ve been to other places on the arctic ocean in the summer and marveled at the sight of Prudhoe Bay without ice for the brief few weeks that it happens.  But here we were going to jump in.

Okay, so jump is a relative term.  Prudhoe bay is really shallow, for quite a long distance.  We were warned in advance to wear shoes, since we were going to have to wade out until we got waist deep, then submerge over our heads, then slog back.  The beach is rough gravel and sharp rocks.  We signed in and began our slog our into the bay.

The water temperature, according to the little certificate I got was 32 degrees. The air temperature was 48.  It didn’t feel so bad…at first.  But the further out we got, the chillier we got.

As previously mentioned, the plan was to stop at waist deep, I should say I did.  My friend tried to keep going.  I think he forgot that I’m like a half a foot shorter than him.  I’m not short by any means, but he’s pretty tall.  Our conversation went about like this:

 

“How deep do we have to go?” I asked, puzzled that he kept walking seaward.

“Just waist-deep, then we dunk our heads under.”

“Where are you going?”

“I want to get deeper.”

“You go ahead, I’m dunking now.”

 

So we both dunked under, then trudged quickly back to shore, where a friend was trying to video said event.  Unfortunately, the video didn’t record, but I got some pictures.

For those of you who have never been, I hope you liked my pictures of the arctic ocean.  I feel privileged to have been able to work in such a unique place for so long.