A journal of cold-water immersions for Advent

Winter 2020/2021

Day one. 28th November. Leah and I are joined at 10 am by the young British couple, Finn and Emily, who have been staying in the village for three months. The pool I found the other day is magnificent close-up. An amazing cloudy turquoise, it must contain limestone. Three of us go in. Me first (it was my idea). It is really cold. The others cheer me on. I get out quick. I suggest we make it into a challenge for advent and do it every day until Christmas. Leah agrees.

Day 2. Just Leah and I. We go around mid-day. Leah takes the timer. I panic and get out quick. Only about 40 seconds for me. Three and a half minutes for Leah. Impressive. She has done more training with cold showers.

Day three. It’s raining. It hasn’t rained in months. We go anyway, round 1.30. The mountains float with misty clouds passing through the dark pines. The colours in the gorge are so vibrant, glistening barks in bright green camouflage material. Red ferns leading down to the rocks. Damp moss. Luminescence. There is a huge curved rock that looks like Morla, the giant turtle/ mound from The Never-Ending Story. I ask Leah to take a picture of me in the atmospheric scene. On the edge of our pool, we find the bottom-half of a dead rodent, swollen with the water. It is the bottom half of an edible dormouse, or siebenshlaeffe as the local Germans call it. Kinda creepy, it seems chopped in half, as if with a butcher’s knife. We have no idea what could have caused this. Leah fishes it out. She won’t go in the water in that spot, so, taking care not to slip, we climb up to a much higher pool. I manage one and a half minutes, the rain falling insistently on the pool, our clothes and boots at the side.

Day four. 1st December. Sunny. On our way out we meet a nice Greek couple who live part time in the village and speak some English. They explain to us which houses their families used to own and the fact that the village was never to be lived in all seasons. In the winter people went to live down in the town below. I don’t think this is true, they seem to have forgotten their ancestry who did live here all winter. Upon leaving them to go in a different direction, we tell them that we are going for a dip. They laugh incredulously and call us crazy. “Even the sea is too cold now”, they say. Later we will learn that they will have bumped into Leah’s mum, who had just come back from a dip in the sea and they will exclaim that the whole family is crazy. We look for the rodent. All that is left is a small part of the tail. Someone must have taken advantage. Good. We go in one at a time so we can time it properly and take pictures. I manage two and a half minutes, with Leah talking me through it. “Concentrate… how does the water feel on your body.” I try and concentrate but I have no words for it. Upon emerging I observe “It is like everything and nothing all at once”. We are seeing the benefits already. Leah’s anxiety is much subsided and my irritability has eased.

Day five. It is cold but beautiful today. We are joined by Finn and Emily. It is Emily’s first time and she manages to stay an incredible 7 minutes. Inspired by her endurance I manage to stay four and a half, which is a big leap, I feel. At the weekend we allow ourselves a hot chocolate after the dip, but trying not to do that every day.

Day Six. I hurt my back in yoga last night, feeling very fragile. It is cold. I do not want to go in. We are joined by Finn and Emily. We point out the large turtle-shaped rock with moss that looks like the giant turtle in The Never-Ending story. They haven’t seen the film; they are too young. We resolve to watch it while they are here, it is their last few days. Emily goes in with Leah. Leah stays 8 minutes, Emily stays 11. I watch them, waiting to go in after them. I go in alone. I manage 3 minutes. It is hard. But I am glad I did it, now I can talk to them enthusiastically about the benefits of cold-water immersion on the way home.

Day seven. Back still hurts. It is cloudy but warmer today. I warm up with some aerobics, then go in with Leah. Just us two today. Nobody is watching the clock, so, although I find it painful, I manage 5 minutes. My best yet. But the enthusiasm is waning. The adrenaline rush before going in has subsided. “Seven-day itch”, Leah says. Now we see if we are in for the long haul. Incredibly, Leah did 10 minutes today. Last night we watched Lynx Vilden on Surviving the Stone Age and I realise that if Leah and I want to do a longer wilderness course with Lynx, then this is the least endurance training we can do. We are a quarter of the way through our challenge.

Day 8. Joined by Emily. Rain just cleared as we left home late afternoon. I get in with Emily, then Leah joins us. I try and pass time by telling them about the water thermometer I have ordered. Leah sacrifices her time potential and gets out first so she can look at the timer for us. I am already up to seven and a half minutes and I figure I can stay another minute, elated when I get to eight, I figure I can stay for 9. After that I may as well stay for 10. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to ever do this long. I am really happy I had a good day today, since my enthusiasm had started to wane, with my back pain and poor times. It is not a competition. But Emily stays for 14 minutes: is it youth or Welsh blood? We add rocks to our rock-stack tally chart.

Day 9. Sunday. It is Finn and Emily’s last weekend on the island, so we take a long walk up the gorge. We all stop for a short dip at a pool quite a bit higher than we usually go, then carry on up. We find a thick plane tree that has a little cave for hiding out in and a gnarly branch in the shape of a dragon’s head. Then we find a goat’s skull with a wire impaled through the eye. Must have been a painful end. They want to have a competition for who gets to keep it, but we know that we will let them have it because they really want it and we could always find another one. Higher up we find another pool that is stunning: deep, with a big waterfall dripping down into it, beautiful bright green moss. The space is cavernous and the water is deep turquoise, despite being shaded. I can’t resist going in again, so I make them wait for me. Leah takes some photos that look like I have immersed myself in one of my paintings. Up at the top we join a dirt road that winds around the mountains and valleys, close to the top. Blistering wind up here. When we reach the little white church with grass, trees and a couple of picnic benches, we eat a lunch they have prepared for us. Steak, dry bread and ketchup. It is satisfying, but the wind stings my hands. As we head off back down to the village in the last of the sun, we see bruised and golden storm clouds coming over. It may rain and we may get soaked. When it rains here it goes through your raincoat instantly, but we make it back home dry.

Day 10. We head off to our usual pool mid-afternoon, the morning having been taken up with a rather sad trip to the market. Only four lonely vegetable sellers in the big car park, normally full. It is stormy and they are not sure if there will be a ferry to take them back to the mainland. With the Covid lockdown, the police that have come out to find people to fine for not wearing a mask will have come out in vain, as there is hardly anyone around. As we head to our pool, it is raining hard and there is a thunder storm overhead. “Is a small wet pool the best place to be in a thunderstorm?”, Leah asks. It is a pointless question, because we are already on our way and we are not going to turn around now. We need this trip to the pool. Our relationship is on the very edge, from all the pressures we have been under and this commitment to getting in the cold water has become the main thing keeping us going. The shock therapy presses a reset button every time. We arrive at the pool, not quite drenched to the skin. I undress first to get in so Leah can start the timer and take a photo of me. The rain is cold on my skin and I squeal a little. I go in, but not for long, only three minutes today. The getting dressed into the wet clothes on damp skin challenging. We walk back with soggy feet and heavy trousers. As we approach the home-stretch I think to myself that this daily ritual is a privilege and testament to the level of comfort we have reached at home, now that the works to stop the water coming in having been finished and we have the security of our house being in a much more comfortable state. We get home, Leah lights the fire and I have a shower. I squeal again, as a fat scorpion scuttles across the shower. Leah removes it for me. Then she discovers there is water coming in through the wall in one of the corners of our house. This is the first time the house is having a proper test to see if all the works perform their function. They say water is a metaphor for emotion. We are a third of our way through the advent challenge.  

Day 11. Incredibly clear day. Today we say goodbye to Finn and Emily, as they leave the island to return to the UK. Since we have spent a lot of time with them making sure they feel at home here, we now start a new chapter. 23-year-old Finn, told Leah that we were really cool and rugged. Quite a result for two thirty-eight-year-old women. I guess that means we have shed a fair amount of our domesticity. After we leave them at the port, we go down to the sea for a dip. We try to be quick, as we are not sure if we saw a police man on the way to the beach we’re not sure whether swimming is allowed, we believe that it’s not. It is cold. But not as cold as the rock pools near the village.

Day 12. A storm is approaching, but the air temperature is quite warm and it is not raining. The pool is much more full from the rain we have had and the colour has changed. Most of the masses of autumn leaves that prevented us from entering the pool at the shallow end have washed away. The water pounds into it. It is very cold today, but Leah and I manage to stay five and a half minutes. It is a relief to not have to rush to put our clothes back on, with them not getting drenched with rain this time. We add the right amount of stones to our stone tally. Emily and Finn’s three stones are still there, but they won’t be added to any more.

Day 13. It has been raining for the best part of two days. Towards the end of the afternoon there is a break in the sky. Leah and I go down to the gorge. As we approach, we hear what sounds like cascading rapids, but we are not sure if it is the wind. As we approach, we realise it is the water, an incredible sight. Rapids, a light-brown deluge, in all directions, from all the water flowing off the mountainsides. Our pool is barely visible, the water is racing over it. Branches and tree trunks wash down and it is too dangerous to go in. We resolve to go home and take a cold shower instead. Our house has had some water coming in on one corner that is not quite sealed. We are just about keeping it out by positioning and repositioning plastic sheets outside. The builders came to see the problem and they are relieved that it is just a small corner of a job they hadn’t quite finished and that the main works are keeping the water out.

Day 14. Leah says that she could hear the water cascading in the gorge from her parents’ balcony, so it probably isn’t worth walking over there to see if it’s possible to go in. So, we take another cold shower. I have two chilblains on my left foot that have been uncomfortable at night. I hope I don’t get more; I don’t want to stop the challenge. Leah’s dad says the old cure for chilblains is to pee on them and tells his old story about having his feet in dipped in urine for a few minutes when he was a kid. “Did it work?” He doesn’t remember. Then he Googles it. “This remedy is strictly for the jungle”, the first article says. An old wives’ tale. I speculate about whether it is still considered p.c. to say old wives’ tale, because if it is, then it definitely shouldn’t be.

Day 15. Saturday. I suggest to Leah that we take the path higher up the gorge to see if the water is safe to go in up there. It isn’t raining, but has been all night. We can still hear the rushing water from our house when the wind is right, which is at the opposite corner of the village from the gorge. When we reach the water, it’s pretty violent still. The top path is really precarious, it is about as narrow as your foot in places. We try to follow the old concrete structure of the village’s water channel, but it is crumbled away in places, all the leaves that are going to fall for the winter are covering it, wet and slippery. It is a steep slide down to the gorge if we slip. We reach the big pool at the top of the old water channel, which has been totally dry all summer. I go in first. I stay for about 5 minutes, actively swimming against the current, feeling the water pummelling my skin and the jabbing sensation of the cold. Leah goes in after and stays the same amount of time.

Day 16. We decide to go to the same spot, as it was really exhilarating swimming against the water yesterday. The sun has already gone behind the mountains by the time we leave, it’s a 20-minute walk. I immerse myself in the last light. Enjoying the rush, I stay for 10 minutes. My body is flushed with cold, while trying to get dressed and all the way back home. Apparently, your body temperature will keep going down after you get out for at least the same amount of time that you stay in for. I am still waiting for my water thermometer to be delivered to the island. It takes time to dress when your body and hands are so cold, the fabric doesn’t slide easily over your cold damp skin. Fingers are stiff for tying up shoelaces. Leah takes up the challenge (it’s not a competition) and stays 10 minutes too.

Day 17. We’re really tired from getting up early and doing the weekly market shopping in the rain, finding a squealing kitten under a bin and giving it food, while trying to get back to the village in time so Leah’s parents can have their car back to go to the market. It is still raining and we are less than enthused about going for a dip. We walk up to the same spot, not planning on staying in very long. The water is even higher and rushing faster. We decide to go in at the same time for speed. The water is cold and fast, it stabs. Giant bubbles come towards us from the downpour of the chute. Singing away the last minute with our medieval chant we’ve come to use, we manage to stay for 5 minutes. Coats, shoes and socks a bit soggy from the rain, we get dressed and get home as quickly as possible to light a fire and warm up. Our “wild” cat Banjo barely acknowledges we have returned, sleeping on a sheepskin by the fire waiting for it to be lit. Leah’s post she made yesterday on social media with a video of her in the water has caused a splash. “Who knew that a naked woman swimming in cold water would get such a reaction” she says.

Day 18. Finally, the rain has stopped and we have a bright, dry day. A local Greek man has heard about our cold-water dips and wants to come with us for the challenge. On the way to the gorge we meet another lady who lives in the corner of the village where the path to the gorge starts. The man is nervous, embarrassed about people knowing what he is doing, he has a big bag, which looks full of towels and thick dressing gowns and he thrusts it on me to carry. Later, he explains his behaviour with of the virus and more than two people are not supposed to go for exercise together. We learn that when he was a kid there were only two families living in the village all year round. We reach the pool, it looks a lot brighter than we have been used to and a lot calmer, with the deluge from the 10-day rain storm having subsided. It’s more teal than the ochre we got used to. Leah goes in with him so that I can do the timer and take pictures. She gets straight in. He came without a bathing suit, thinking we would all be going naked, but seeing that we brought our swim suits, he was obliged to go in in his pants. He goes up to his waist shrieking. “We are from the north, remember”, Leah says to reassure him. He stays maybe three minutes at waist height, dipping himself fully twice. Leah stays for seven minutes. Then I go in and stay for seven. The water feels good today and the water is running slowly enough that I can rest on the large rock that the water is flowing down onto. We walk back with him and say goodbye, unsure whether he will join us again. We see two tiny baby goats huddling together just off the path. They look newly born. Very cute. It is not the dead of winter yet, but the goats are ravaging the top end of the village, breaking stone walls and roofs as they charge up and down. We have 10 more days of the challenge.

Day 19. Shortly before we planned to go to the gorge, we have a hay-bail to carry up to our house and it will take two people. As Leah comes down to help me, she puts her foot on a steep slab of wet mossy concrete, slips and falls a foot downwards, bashing her mouth on the stone ground. I watch it happen with horror in slow motion. I go to help pick her up. She is panicking that she broke her teeth, but I can’t see her teeth as I take an initial look at her bloody face. I hold her tight taking her down to the road to her parent’s house. She rinses herself in the kitchen sink and a chair is brought for her to sit down on. As she dabs herself with kitchen paper, I can see that her teeth seem to be there and intact, but she has a big v-shaped gash going right through her top lip. “O.k. we need to go to the medical centre” I tell her. Her dad brings the car up the road and I go with Leah, her mum driving, I massage her shoulders from the back seat. Everyone is quiet and in shock. Leah puts the radio on. As we get closer to the medical centre a blues song is playing. “I’m a man. M. A. N. MAN”, over and over in a southern American accent. I get out and stand with Leah, as her mum goes up to the doors. She is met by a member of staff who comes out and gestures us to go into one of the cabins outside that has been set up for emergency treatments during Covid. I am not allowed to go in with her, I must wait outside with Leah’s mum. She is in there for a while, but we don’t hear any screaming, so we figure things must be o.k. When she eventually comes out, she has been given four stiches under local anesthetic and she has been told she has sprained her finger. She tells us of how the male doctor was getting annoyed, saying skata, which on reflection Leah remembered means “shit” and malaka, the standard Greek swear word. When Leah laughed under her breath, he told her that she had very thick skin, which made the stitching difficult. We visit the pharmacy to get the stuff she needs to keep it clean. She is worried she will be badly scarred and the worry crosses my mind too. We don’t go to the gorge for a dip today, but I do have a brandy for the shock.

Day 20. Leah is recovering from her injuries today, having had a bad night’s sleep with the pain and re-living the incident. I decide to take a walk to the closer pool we were swimming in before the big rain to see if it is possible to get in there now. I want to try my new water thermometer I finally received yesterday. The water temperature is 10.6 degrees, which is about the same as the air temperature. I go in the water by myself for three and a half minutes, singing my medieval chant to pass the time. I get dressed and set to work replacing the stone tally chart that got washed away in the torrential rain storms.

Day 21. 10.6 degrees. 3.5 minutes. Leah is back on it.

Day 22. 10.3 degrees. 4 minutes. Today our water got cut off mid-afternoon. Only thing we can do in this situation is contact some neighbours to see if their water is cut off. Nobody else is cut off, but the pressure is low. Seems we have discovered that if the water goes, ours is the first to go, our house being at the top of the village. Our neighbour advises to sit and wait and hope it comes back soon. We fill some bottles and jugs at Leah’s parents incase theirs runs out. The next day we hear that there are men working on it and we get the water back about 24 hours after it stopped, never really learning why it got cut off. All we know is that there is another village on the island and when it rained heavily last year their water reservoir got contaminated with excess debris and had to be cut off for a while. Ironic that after such a lot of rain we should have no water.

Day 23. 10.1 degrees. 6 minutes. The outside temperature is quite cold and we have been chilly during the day. Before we go to the pool, we attend an online breath workshop and tell the group how the cold-water challenge has really helped us get into our bodies and press the reset button on our anxieties, so that we can be more present, to such a degree that we are quite hooked. Leah has a migraine, so today feels tougher. My toes are very cold on the way home but my chilblains don’t seem to have got much worse.

Day 24. 9.9 degrees. 4.5 minutes. I have a new chilblain, but the others seem to be healed.

Day 25. 9.9 degrees. 4 minutes. There are so many wild goats roaming the village now, we see dozens in big groups on the way to our dip. There are so many kids, practically newly born, today going through the fields to the gorge we saw around 10 new babies and a group of 6 of them just hanging out together, we got really close. The herds have been raiding people’s gardens for anything that they can get, wrecking everything as they clamber around. We have to periodically chase them away from our house and garden. Leah’s parents have had the builders sealing off their vegetable garden with tall fences, but they haven’t quite finished. After nightfall Leah helps her mum to try and barricade the gaps at the edges so that the vegetables might remain safe until after the weekend when the builders will come and finish the job.

Day 26. 10 degrees. 5 minutes. Leah went to get her stitches out today, which was painful and with three doctors on the job, they could only find two of the four, so there may still be two left under the last of the scab, which they couldn’t remove.

Day 27. 9.8 degrees. 5.5 minutes. We go to the pool higher up, which is calm and very beautiful. On the way home we discuss whether we will carry on with the cold-water dips after the challenge finishes on Christmas. It seems that the benefits are far outweighing the drawbacks. So, we decide to keep going pretty much every day, but let ourselves off, if we have days when it might be difficult. Even just to get out, to observe how the environment is changing every day, to expand the parameters of our fields of our vision, is so beneficial. It is good for the skin, good for the waistline, good for the spirit, forces us out of our heads and into our bodies. It makes us more resilient physically and emotionally, so that now we can get in without too much problem and stay a decent amount of time. Our relationship has improved by having this time together every day and being jolted out of all our difficulties. We inspire other people who see the pictures of us. Plus, we are curious to find out how much colder we can handle, as the winter continues.

Day 28. Christmas day. Leah and I head to the close pool, taking our bikinis so we can pose in a “decent” fashion so as to share the Christmas photo. I put my head under the waterfall especially for Christmas. The head being pummelled by cold water definitely provides an extra experience for the senses, as well as causing a little confusion.

As the winter unfolded, we would experience much colder temperatures and several snowfalls. On day 65 we would trek through the snow to experience 4.4 degrees outside and 4.7 in the water. The coldest dip was in thick snow fall, -1 degrees outside and about 4 in the water. We took it in turns, so we could help each other get dressed afterwards. Icicles would form on the rocks, my chilblains would get worse. But we stuck it out, until the spring. That year we were unable to leave the island because of lockdowns, which I found isolating and trapping at times. We spent a whole year, mainly in the village, which is the longest I have ever been in one place without moving. We were forced to fully engage with that environment, fully alive and fully awake to all the grief, pain, light and beauty.

A burst water pipe caused an incredible ice sculpture