My lovely wife is from western PA (Pennsylvania, not Prince Albert, in case there was any confusion) and thus speaks with a certain flair. There are a number of words or phrases that find their root in the linguistic bowels of the greater Pittsburgh (Picksurgh). One of the is the phrase “freeze your bippy off,” which translates to being really cold. This afternoon a few of us experienced the frozen bippies.
My buddy Andy and I teach an intro to kayaking class every spring, usually to a handful of high school students. We like to start in an indoor pool, where the water is calm and warm, and there is no wind to steal the heat from our bodies once wet. With no pool available to us, we started the class today in a pond. The ambient temp was 62, and the sun was shining, but it was windy, and the water temp was probably 50. That’s not too bad if you’re moving; paddling a boat can keep you warm even if the water is cold. But as the instructor, I spend most of the first class out of my boat, in the water, making sure that the fledgling kayakers can perform the first test: the wet exit.
That’s the make-or-break place for most people. You get yourself wedged into a plastic tube, and seal the cockpit with a neoprene skirt designed to keep water out. So far so good. But when the boat rolls upside down (as kayaks are prone to do) you have to be able to extricate yourself from said plastic tube in order to do what we like to call BREATHING. You see, while there is ample oxygen in the water, you and I are woefully ill-equipped to draw the oxygen from the water, which leads to NOT BREATHING. And just to be clear, breathing is good; not breathing is bad. We’ve had more than one able-bodied outdoorsy type decide very quickly that kayaking isn’t their deal after a turn upside down in the cold water. I guess you never know what you’re uncomfortable with until you’re facing it.
Invariably one or two of the newbies is scrawny, lacking any body fat to insulate against the frigid water. At the first rollover/wet exit, they come up gasping at the shock of the cold water. A few minutes later, they’re shivering uncontrollably. If they don’t get back to paddling, they’re done for the day.
We had one such young man today. He also happens to suffer from chronic nosebleeds. I was not informed of that prior to his initial dunking, so when he came up with a nosebleed, I got a little concerned. I hurried him out of the pond, and as we sat there on the bank, the shivering started. We go the bleeding stopped, and he told me that he’d recently had his nose cauterized. Ouch. Very ouch. He still has instances of bleeding like today, but it’s not nearly as bad as it has been. Whatever the case, he was done for the day. So he dried off and watched the rest of the class take their turns getting wet and cold. Thankfully, there were no more unexpected incidents.
But for the rest of the evening, I was freezing. I couldn’t warm up. Not after a warm supper, not after a mug of hot coffee, not after an evening of playing guitar at worship team rehearsal.
When the chilly pond water gets you, you’re got. Such is the price we pay to play a little bit. I’ll take the chance of freeing my bippy off if it means I get to play in the water and teach others to enjoy a different part of the great outdoors.
If you’d like to learn to kayak, drop me a line!
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