In Which I Was Kate Winslet

...for all of five seconds.

Let me explain. So today was the "Swim For Life" which is a swim across the Hudson River, raising funds for Leukemia and Lymphoma. It was 65 degrees outside. And windy and cloudy. In the water? 72 degrees. Which, sounds warm but isn't.

A 'cold' pool will be about 80 degrees. Comfortable bathtub water is about 96 degrees. Scalding hot bathtub water is about 104 degrees. How do I know this? Well, pools have thermometers, but I had this little toy boat that had a thermometer and I used to take the temperature of my baths.

Not my point. Any water that is below 70 degrees is considered hypothermic, according to the boat captain that pulled me out of the water (I'll get to that in a minute. According to Wikipedia "Water at a temperature of 26 °C (79 °F) will, after prolonged exposure, lead to hypothermia." I don't doubt it. That water was cold, and it was 72 degrees. As I told one of my friends, "It was like the fucking Titanic", hence why I was Kate Winslet for all of five seconds.

So, I got in the water at about nine-thirty this morning, with just the instruction to follow the buoys, and that they would guide me through the current. Now, Usually this advice works, and swimmers aren't supposed to go straight across because then you end up fighting the current through a lot of it.

Not this year. This year was the exact opposite. The people who just went straight across had an easier time of it than those who followed the buoys. I followed the buoys as best I could. But the wind was so bad that it made the water really rough and choppy, making it hard to swim through. It made me nauseous, and I never get seasick. I can still taste Hudson River water when I sniffle.

As I was passing the sixth or seventh buoy, the volunteer firefighters of the town I live in's boat (yes, the volunteer firefighters had a boat) told me they were rounding up all the swimmers because we had gotten so spread out through the river. Additionally, there were some people who were starting to suffer from hypothermia. Like this one guy on my boat had to be taken back because he was so cold and they were afraid he would come down with hypothermia.

The boat captain looked a little bit like that guy from Titanic. He gave me a huge jacket (an XXL) to wear. It was quite cozy, and I hung out on the boat with some old people, all of whom were extremely impressed that I had swam across the river six times. The boat crew dropped us off right one buoy before the finish line, so that we could finish with some dignity.

I have never been so cold in my life. My toenails were blue. I was freezing. The first thing I did when I got home was get the shower as hot as it could go and I took a shower. I found seaweed in my hair. I don't even know how that happened.

Alas, there was no Leo DiCaprio to my Kate Winslet, although I will say that there were some very cute guys there. Moral of the story is? I'm not doing that again. It's nice to help people, but there's kind of a limit.