July 18 (part 2) – Polar Bear Swim

Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 74 Location: Barrow, AK

Last night, Jenny and I went into town to the Top of the World Hotel to do the “official” Polar Bear Swim. The Polar Bear Swim is held daily around 5:30 pm when the daily Tundra Tour bus gets back. People who come to Anchorage to go on Alaska cruises can take 1-3 day excursions to other parts of Alaska before or after their cruise. Many come to Barrow on the morning Alaska Airlines flight at 10 am, tour the tundra all day and leave on the evening Alaska Airlines flight at 8 pm.

We registered at the Top of the World with Fran Tate, the proprietor of Pepe’s North of the Border Mexican restaurant next door. You could call Fran the umpire of the Polar Bear Swim. She made sure that we understood that if we didn’t go all the way under and get our hair completely wet, that she would make us go back before we could get an official patch or certificate.

Fran Tate, the Polar Bear Swim official

The water temperature was 46 F and the air was 41 F, so the chill factor was 32 F. No problem! The water in the Puget Sound is colder than that!

After everyone (all four of us) were ready with our shorts, t-shirts and towels, we walked over to the beach. There Jenny and I took off our sweatpants and sweatshirts and prepared to plunge.

Jenny and I are ready to take the plunge into the Arctic Ocean!

It was not a particularly windy day, but enough to create pretty good surf. Probably the most wave action that we have seen while we have been here. The Arctic Ocean tends to be relatively calm because the fetch, the horizontal distance that the wind travels across the water to create the waves, is so much shorter than the Pacific or the Atlantic. With a full complement of photographers documenting our every action, Jenny and I counted down from three and ran into the water.

Jenny and I run into the Arctic surf

In the Arctic Ocean!

The water was shockingly cold, but quite a rush! We quickly got back out of the water, but it had all happened so fast! I decided that I wanted to go back in, to really feel like I had been in the water. So I briefly headed back in and walked around a bit, before I began to really feel cold and wonder how hard it would be to get out if I got much colder. So I climbed back out and tried to put the sweatpants and shirt back on over my wet clothes. Yuck!

After our polar bear swim

The worst part was the water that seeped through my clothes all the way from downtown back to the NARL before I could get out of them and into a warm shower. Ahhhh. warmth! To top it off, we went back to Pepe’s for dinner. Smile