PORT ANGELES — At the count of five at 10 a.m. New Year’s Day morning, the annual Port Angeles Polar Dip event washed ashore into the third millennium.
More than 50 people braved temperatures in the low 40s to take the plunge into Port Angeles Harbor — and were promptly doused with waves of seaweed.
“This is, I’m gonna say, nasty,” said Bobbi Croxford of Port Angeles, an organizer of the event who’s taken the plunge 15 years in a row.
“It will be days before you get all the seaweed out of your hair and crevices,” she said.
Croxford, 52, wore a tiara, green bathrobe and winter parka after taking the plunge.
While most of the polar bears ran to their heated cars afterward, Croxford walked Hollywood Beach in her bare feet handing out polar bear achievement certificates to those who braved the intense waves.
This is the 18th year of the event; in years past, only two dips into the chilly water were required to get the certificate.
Now that the event is in the third millennium, participants have to dive in three times, Croxford said.
Some daring dippers came from as far as Australia to take the plunge, some from Portland, Ore., and one from the Napa Valley area in California.
There were also locals on the scene, who decided the chilly waters of the North Olympic Peninsula were the only way to start out 2006.
