50/50/50 Rule

While we were tubing on Saturday, the kids got on the tube as soon as we got the boat in the water. The water was 77 degrees when they got in. Tony pulled them up, up, up the lake, as far as we could go in his boat. As we got closer to the end of the lake, the water was getting progressively colder. And colder. And colder. They were doing sign language. C-O-L-D. I was laughing at them. I could feel a nice cool breeze coming down the valley so I thought that was what they were talking about. Toughen up guys!! Then Tony told me that there's a river that feeds into this lake and we were in the river at that time. The gauge on the boat now read 51 degree water temperature. Whew, they were cold!! He pulled the tube to the boat and both of them scrambled onto the boat without even touching the water. What a mean trick.

We were a little confused about the 50/50/50 rule and left out a few 0's when we were telling Ant and Al about it. We told them they could survive 5 minutes in 50 degree water. I looked that up when I got home and the real rule is ( I think), "A 50-year-old has a 50/50 chance of surviving 50 minutes in 50 degree water." But if you ask Alex, she was five minutes away from dying...