"Is this really necessary?" I asked the tour guide as he handed me an insulated full-body suit.
We — that is, me and about a dozen of my fellow cruise ship passengers, most of them around retirement age — were about to embark on a 90-minute scenic boat ride around the coast of British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest. The suits our guide was doling out, which would have looked more at home on a space shuttle, seemed like overkill.
But, as our guide explained, although we would be relatively close to land, we would still be sailing the deep, frigid waters of the North Pacific, weaving between uninhabited fragments of land with names like Devastation Island. If one of us somehow fell into the unforgiving water, these suits would give us a precious extra 15 minutes or so of survival time — hopefully enough to keep us alive until help arrived.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on The Points Guy Articles.
