Experience: Ice Dip Social
Ever wondered what our Ice Dip Social involves?
Join Hannah Brown from euronews.travel as she take the plunge into the North Sea and documents her time with us on her Ice Dip Social Experience.
“I took an ‘ice dip’ in the North Sea wearing just my swimsuit and survived”
Forget about Finland, go to Northumberland to try Ice Dipping this winter.
When I first signed up to try CBK Adventures' new experience ‘Ice Dip Social’ I thought it sounded fun.
It was only the day before going when speaking to my family and being told just how cold the North Sea is that I started to have second thoughts.
But you know what? I didn’t need to worry. Was it cold? Yes. Did I have an amazing day? Also yes.
What does the day entail?
We met first thing in the morning at CBK Adventures on the Northumberland coast. Once we were fitted for wetsuits, we piled into a minibus and headed off to our final destination of Longhoughton Beach, known to locals as Sugarsands.
When we arrived the camp was already set up with a kitchen area serving locally sourced food, a mess tent with a fire and the Finnish sauna tent.
The main attraction of the day was the Ice Dip, a type of wild swimming done in water 5C or less. Fortunately the day I went the water was a positively balmy 9C and the air a tropical 10C.
Still, to take the edge off the cold for our first dip into the North Sea, we wore full 5mm wetsuits. Although that doesn’t sound all that thick, it really did do the trick to ease you into the icy experience.
Despite the initial shock of being in very cold water, this first dip got my blood flowing and I felt ready for the rest of the day.
It takes six dips to acclimatise
While we warmed back up with hot tea in the mess tent, CBK Adventures owner and our cold water guide Simon Laing explained a bit more about the science behind what we were going to do.
“The University of Portsmouth did some research that shows it takes about six episodes of immersion before your body really starts to acclimatise and reduce that cold shock response that you initially have in cold water.”
It turned out going in in our wetsuits the first time was just to give us a feel for the water temperature. The real work to acclimatise started now.
“Running into cold water isn’t great so that’s why we’re going to spend six cycles building up to it,” Simon said.
And by it, he meant going in without a wetsuit.
I wasn’t convinced I would be able to do it but started with a wetsuit on my bottom half and just a swimsuit on my top.
At first it wasn’t too hard. I was able to let the water go up as far as my middle thanks to the wetsuit, but submerging my top half felt really difficult. The cold water stung my skin and I felt incapable of swimming.
But with each dip it got a little bit easier. I felt a little less cold and I was able to spend more time in the water. The second time I went in, I was already swimming and more importantly, smiling.
Having a whole team of cold water experts and lifeguards on hand was a reassuring presence too. Simon and his team monitored everyone individually to check no one was getting too cold or showed any signs of hypothermia.
For the sixth and final dip, I decided to brave going in without a wetsuit at all - something I never imagined I’d be able to do. Of course the water still felt cold, but I was able to swim and it felt worlds apart from those initial steps into the sea.
So much so that by the end of the experience, I didn’t want to get out of the water.
@adventure_cal
