Frozen Toes But No Snow?

So....

In case you were wondering, although extremely entertaining, it is probably not a good idea to spend two hours in the Oregon ocean in mid-October.

The kids all bought skim boards when we were staying in Cannon Beach, but it was too chilly there to take them out. This morning in Florence, Oregon, we awoke to blue skies and warm weather, so after school we suited up and headed for the beach.

Once there, we all stood around in the water and tried to skim. I think we need a Google tutorial as the only one even remotely successful was Andrew.

After giving up on that, we stood around in the waves and played. At one point a dark face behind Michael caught my eye and we all were totally impressed that a seal had been attracted by us and kept popping up in different locations. At times he was only about 15 meters away! He was totally curious and insanely cute. Of course, Michael was nervous about us getting that close to a wild animal, but then again, he was not thrilled with me picking up the bunny last week either. Anyways, after our family and the seal staring at each other for about five or ten minutes we all got bored and went our separate ways. Michael took Abby and Matt and changed them into some warmer clothes and Andrew and I body surfed.

Although it was shockingly cold at first, soon the waves felt nice and warm and we were actually chilled when they were not crashing into us. We made a few remarks about not being sure that there were still feet attached to the bottoms of our legs and the sharp pains in our fingers when we bent them, but in all, it was no different than a day in the Northern Saskatchewan Lakes. However... when you get out of a Northern Saskatchewan Lake it is usually into 25-30 degrees Celsius, because what fool would go swimming in that cold water on a blustery day? What fool indeed.

When we got out of the ocean it was about 18 degrees Celsius and windy. The burning in our digits began about halfway to the truck when we started to regain feeling. Michael held up a blanket so we could strip down and wrap up and then we headed for home. As soon as the truck stopped we beat a hasty path to the showers where we stood under the scalding steam for about half an hour each. It took about another hour after that to stop the chills. I think Andrew was actually a little shocky as his whole body was trembling and he did not freak out that I saw part of him naked while he was getting out of his trunks.

Good times!

Lots of the waves were over our heads!

People recover from hypothermia all the time!

Can't wait to go back tomorrow!