The Three Planktoneers: The Bay Dip!

Every year around Canada Day, Parks Canada hosts Churchill's annual Bay Dip. For obvious reasons the bay dip did not occur on July 1 this year (I THINK it may have had something to do with a lack of liquid water...) but was instead postponed to yesterday. Two enthusiastic CNSC teams participated this year in the balmy high of 14.5 degrees Celsius weather. The event consisted of two main events- a costume contest and the actual run into the bay, which involved some clever dodging of the few ice bits still left on the town beach.

Both teams put in a strong effort in the costume event. A shout out goes to our rival CNSC team and their re-enactment of a the Yellow Submarine by the Beatles. I was certainly impressed by their costume!

We went with our traditional theme of the Planktoneers and created Musketeer like smocks complete with swords, ruffed lapels and pendants sporting the Dapnia we felt we resembled most. I was D.midendorffiana, Erinn was D.ambigua, Kristen (an honourary planktoneer) was D.magna and Ingrid was D.minnehaha. Ingrid and Erinn did a simply fabulous job drawing the Daphnia! Unfortunately Ingrid has had a cold this week and opted not to take part in the swim part of the dip...but a fellow Guelphite Nick was happy to step into this role and pinch hit so to speak.

BEFORE (with Ingrid):

AFTER (with Nick):

The actual run was COLD, but a good time was had by all. Parks won this event, with the Yellow Submarine coming in a strong third and the Planktoneers close behind.

No doubt the biggest surprise of the day came when the winner of the costume contest was announced. While I'm not so sure the judges really understood the whole premise behind the "Planktoneers", we obviously still made an impression as the winners were announced as "The garbage bag people"...aka US! We each got a trophy! After, both teams climbed aboard an iceberg for a group CNSC picture.