Antarctic Journal

Click HERE for a look at seals in the dive hole.

Click HERE for a pre-plunge snapshot.

Today I did the "polar plunge." I went out with a group of scientists who have been diving in McMurdo Sound, collecting sponges and sea stars and other marine creatures. In addition to their dive hole, inside a warm little orange hut, they also drill what is called a "safety hole" outside. All around the hut were seals, like cows in a white, white pasture. I had decided I wanted to do the plunge. There were two others along who also did it. We took off our clothes inside the Spryte and I put my parka on and socks on my feet. When it came time for me to jump, I put on a dive mask, dropped my parka and jumped in. The first time, in the hole outside, it was scarey. But I tried again inside the dive hut where the hole is much bigger and I was less afraid. The second time I cleared the bottom of the ice and peaked out below the ice into the darkness and saw Bill Baker, one of the scientists, there with a camera. I waved and he took my picture and I shot up like a penguin being chased by a leopard seal. Chris, the other diver/scientist, and Sheldon, a McMurdo firefighter who was along to dive tend (and do the plunge), yanked me out of the hole.

Today was my birthday. I felt it somehow fitting that on the day I was born, here I was in my birthday suit, having a good dunking in those life-giving sea waters that were once home to us all. The water, according to Chris, was about 25 degrees F. Very cold. I warmed up quickly, though.

The other exciting thing that happened today was that when we first entered the dive hut a mother seal and her baby (these are Weddell Seals) were in the dive hole in the hut, breathing hard, their black eyes and whiskers above the water line, curled around each other like a yin-yang symbol, that ancient Chinese symbol of balance.

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