Student - January 22, 2010

Bracing winter dip in the Rhine

There were 22 of them on Wednesday evening 20 January taking the traditional winter dip in the Rhine - the boys and girls of the International Forestry Student Organisation Wageningen.

The 2010 winter Rhine dip was a great success with more than twenty hardy souls taking part.
The outside temperature was about two degrees above zero. So that wasn't too bad. 'But the water felt pretty icy this year as we had had freezing temperatures for weeks', says Ralph van Krimpen of the IFSOW. Not surprising then that it was a case of 'in quickly and out even more quickly'. 'Only the really hardy ones put their heads under as well.' Indeed, once out of the water the students soon got through the five litres of hot glühwein they had brought with them in Thermos flasks. Ralph: 'It's the toes that take longest to get back up to temperature.'
All time record
A total of 22 students took part in the dip, an all time record according to Ralph. Some were braving the cold January water for the first time while others had done it several times before. There was even one boy taking his ninth dip. Most of the participants were Dutch but the group also contained a Czech student, a Spaniard, an American and a Brazilian.