Ah Trini Travelogue Trinidad & Tobago's most travelled blogger through 99 countries. Create and Re-Engineer your life for travel.
There are a couple things that can never be mixed
– Oil and Water
– Fire and Ice
– Heaven and Hell
To that list, I’ll add the following:
A Trinidadian and diving into Antarctic Waters
In my travels, I’ve managed to dip my some part of my body into almost every ocean in the world. My final ocean was to be the Southern Ocean. By doing not just one but more than one Antarctica Polar Plunge back to back, I ensured that the Trinis can keep our heads high compared to the others of the world. Prior to coming to Antarctica, my friends were all sure I would be doing the Polar Plunge, yet I wasn’t so sure. I saw some videos and I really didn’t like what I saw. That being said, there would be no way that my ego would allow me to skip the polar plunge.
There are different forms of the Polar Plunge, so depending on the weather and the ship that you’re travelling on, you could be doing a polar swim off the shore of Deception Island. Try to imagine someone stripping down to their underwear or nothing at all, running towards zero degree water and then swimming until they touched a floating raft and then swimming back to shore, then redressing and returning to the ship in freezing wet clothes. You can also find plungers taking the leap from the ship’s Zodiac platforms, off an isolated ice shelf or from Antarctica’s rocky shoreline. Due to the accelerated program we were doing and the weather conditions, we couldn’t do a full polar swim, so instead we did the polar plunge off the side of the Sea Adventurer.
Prior to the plunge, we were all pretty stoked with some liquid courage … the ship was nice enough to provide shots of vodka, and combined with the shots of vodka we had in our room, we were all definitely cranked up to go. As I made my way down, I kept hearing chants of ….
Belly Flop! Belly Flop! Belly Flop! Belly Flop!
Who was I to resist the temptation to please and entertain the crowd. (Warning … the following video and photos might have caused the Earth’s axis to shift)
It’s very difficult to explain the sensation of a polar plunge. If you’ve ever kept your hand in freezing water for a couple seconds, you’ll know that your hand will go numb pretty quickly. Now multiply that sensation by about 1000 … when you are swimming in polar water, you don’t have any air left to shout. I physically could not speak, only shout and grunt. So how else do you follow up a polar plunge … with another one back to back!
The great thing about doing these types of stunts with a whole crew of photographers is that you’re going to get some great video and multiple angles of your plunge. Here is the aerial satellite view of the belly flop that rocked the planet.
- Yep! Orca going down!
Once we were done admiring and applauding ourselves … it was time for the vodka shots. No polar plunge will be complete without the requisite shots of alcohol. This was definitely a different way to start the New Year!
If you’re looking for video proof of Trinidadian craziness … well then, I have even have that for you, since nothing occurred without video proof right?
