A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School

Every Thursday (like clockwork) we climb into the van to go to school and Darby screams "My library books!" And, every Thursday I shut the van off, go inside, dig around the laundry and retrieve the library books. Well, today was no different, as you can guess.
I bring the books out and hand them to Darby and Aidan says "Oh, the boat book. I really, really love that boat book." Darby informs him that it is NOT a boat book, it's a very important book about the Titanic and he does not know what he's talking about. She then goes into the story of the Titanic, because she actually read her library books this week, and I'm having to help her with Aidan's questions (like "What the heck's an iceberg?").
She gets to the part about people dying from drowning and freezing and that some people still lived even though they had to swim in the very coldest water you could ever imagine. And, she informs Aidan that it was a long, long, long time ago "even before Grandma Keri's mother was born". Aidan asked her who WAS alive when it happened and Darby tells him "Um, God."

Aidan says "Ooh, Ooh, I know who was......Aunt Nikki!"

So, Nikki, was the water really that cold?