The May Dip has been a tradition at St. Andrews since I don't know when; with a University this old, there are a lot of traditions. The tradition itself is quite simple. On May 1st each year at dawn, hundreds of University students head to Castle Sands, the beach in the center of St. Andrews, in order to take a dip in the North Sea. This is supposed to cleanse you of any academic "sins", which supposedly make a student fail all their courses. Now this sounds like a chilly and rather unappealing tradition, but in reality, it's quite an experience, mostly because students spend the night before having parties and bonfires on all three of St. Andrews' beaches before finally converging on Castle Sands at 3 or 4am. Before I get into it, however, I should probably describe how I approached the night.
On May 1st, I had two essays due. As of Thursday, one was completed. The other, much longer one did not have a word on paper, although my research for it was done. Because Thursday is my busy day in terms of classes, I wasn't going to be able to start the 3000 word assignment until after dinner. On top of that, I had promised to go to a pub quiz that night to help Steph, as the quiz was a fundraiser for an autistic boy she volunteers with. Needless to say, there was a strong possibility I wasn't making it to the Dip, or at least to any of the fun that proceeds it. However, there are times when I impress even myself with my efficiency when focused. After scarfing down dinner at record speed, I managed to crank out 500 words before the pub quiz, which also ended up being a lot of fun. While we didn't win, my team (Tomas, Steph and myself) definitely beat the other team of our friends (Kelsey, Neil and Hannah), so we were content.
I made it back to my hall at 10:30 and settled in to work. From 10:30 to 2 am, I managed to finish another 2000 words and to improve the 500 I had already put down, as about half of that was... less than adequate, to put it nicely. With that much under my belt, I felt I deserved a break and headed out to West Sands where my friends from Andrew Melville were having a beach party. It had been raining for the past day and a half and rained most of the following day, but that night was absolutely perfect. I had to walk half a mile or so down the beach to meet everyone, and it was a fantastic night to be out. Stars were everywhere, since St. Andrews is pretty small and doesn't have a lot of light pollution and the moon was huge. It was one of the nicest walks I've had since I got here, and I've been doing quite a bit of walking.
The beach party itself was a lot of fun. Pretty much all of my friends from my hall were there, and they had both a bonfire and a barbecue going, making it very much the stereotypical beach party. Throughout the semester, we've slowly been growing closer and closer to people in our hall, and hanging out with them at the beach was one of those moments when I'm reminded that we really are part of the group now, in a way we weren't when we first got here.
Eventually the sky started to lighten up a bit and it was time to make our way to Castle Sands. I'm not completely sure why that beach was chosen as the correct one from which to jump into the ocean. To begin with, it's the smallest. On top of that, as you can see in the picture here, it's backed by cliffs, meaning that there's only one way to get up or down. Not an easy task with hundreds of students all trying to do the same thing. Lastly, it's the rockiest of all the beaches, with rough, grainy sand and rows upon rows of submerged rocks (one of which later met with my knee in an unfortunate and painful collision). All of this seems like a poor choice, particularly with drunken students added to the mix. (For the record, I was not among the drunken ones. Jumping into the sea in that state just seemed like another poor choice.)But I guess tradition is tradition, and we wouldn't want to miss out on participating in our one semester here. So at four am on May 1st, Steph, Kelsey and I were joined by Tomas in running into the North Sea. For anyone who ever considers doing this, I will warn you right now-- however cold you think it's going to be, it is worse. I actually screamed when I hit the water because of the temperature. To make matters worse, I was with people who insisted we actually submerge ourselves in the water. Our friends on the shore, who had already gone in, were standing there laughing at our obvious pain as we paddled around for a bit trying not to lose feeling in our limbs. And even better, as we went to get out, we had to climb up on a ledge of submerged rock to reach the shore again. As Steph and I climbed up and tried to gain our balance, Tomas came over and grabbed our hands. To help? Nope. He, being the gentleman that he is, took that opportunity to shove us both back into the water, and unfortunately had enough balance not to follow as we tried to pull him with us.
When we did finally make it out, we were cold to the point that sand against our feet burned. Thankfully, there was a bonfire only a few short steps away, and our friends had been holding towels for us, so we were soon back to a relatively normal temperature. After warming up, we headed back to our hall still soaked and shivering at five in the morning, backed by one of the best sunrises I have ever seen.
I realize looking back at what I've written that it doesn't seem like that much of an experience, and certainly not one that I would be convinced I'll remember forever. But it was, and I am. It was an awesome night, simply because we got to spend most of it with friends. Despite smashing my knee on underwater rocks and feeling possibly the coldest water I've ever been in in my life, given the choice, I would do everything again. It's an experience that I think is uniquely St. Andrews and part of the reason I love it here.
And, for the record, I think the paper turned out relatively well. I even managed to get it in an hour early.
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