EDITOR’S NOTE: Here’s a link to a video of the Port Angeles Polar Bear Plunge by former Sequim Gazette staffer Jay Cline: http://vimeo.com/115763675
PORT ANGELES — Christmas colors of red and green turned to chilled blue and fish-belly white Thursday as about 100 recreational adventurers scampered into Port Angeles Harbor from Hollywood Beach.
All of them scurried back out, most of them invigorated, all of them cold. Very cold.
About 130 people took the plunge off the Nordland General Store’s dock on Marrowstone Island on the first day of the year, while six jumped into the Strait of Juan de Fuca at Neah Bay and three ventured into the chilly water of Lake Pleasant near Forks.
Participants in the 2015 edition of the Port Angeles Polar Bear Plunge said the air temperature was 26 degrees when they ran into the water although a nearby auto thermometer registered 33 degrees and Fairchild International Airport measured 36 degrees.
But that’s splitting hairs that stood on end in the cold. No one complained it wasn’t chilly enough.
“I was going to see if I could get our public health officer to declare the beach unsafe today,” joked Dr. Ed Hopfner, a director of the Volunteer Hospice of Clallam County.
At times, the harbor has been declared off limits to swimmers due to pollution from sewage and runoff overflows into it after heavy rains.
The hospice will benefit from challenges some plungers issued to each other for monetary amounts, although the total of the contributions wase not immediately available.
Why would Hopfner take to the frigid water at the age of 82, making him possibly the oldest Polar Bear on the beach?
“To see if I could challenge my body to do something I don’t want to do,” he said.
Meanwhile, Norman Greene, 56, of Port Angeles said he’d been talked into taking his first dip by his wife, Delaine, also 56.
She was a repeat plunger.
“I loved it,” she said of her 2014 plunge. “It’s a great way to ring in the new year. It’s like washing off the old and starting brand new.”
After counting down from 10, the plungers ran into the water, most of them up to their waists, a few to their chests, although one woman went in up to her neck.
One man rushed in and out carrying a Seahawks flag, and one woman made her trips with walking poles.
They repeated their dips twice, each time seeming to leave the water more quickly, before cheering themselves and heading for dry clothes and the warm drinks that were offered by hospice volunteers.
A Port Angeles Fire Department ambulance stood nearby, but its crew reported no customers.
Three spectators watched from the water in kayaks, and about 100 more people — all bundled up against the cold — looked on from the shore.
After her dip, Jamie Scott of Port Angeles said her swim had been “fresh and invigorating, It makes you think you can conquer anything once you’ve hit the ocean.”
Delaine Greene also called the experience “invigorating” and “amazing.”
Possibly the youngest plunger was 6-year-old Jaycyn Greis, a student at Roosevelt School, who described his dip as simply “cold.”
Polar Bear Plunge organizer Dan Weldon, 69, said, “It was exhilarating. Every cell in my body has been awakened.
“I’m telling my body its going to be an exciting year and it better be ready.”
Each plunger received a certificate from this, the 27th New Year’s Day event, that said, “Congratulations. You just did the craziest thing you will do all year.”
When only three people took the annual plunge at Lake Pleasant near Forks, organizer Carin Hirsch said, “I guess 23 degrees was a little too low. We had more watching than went into the water.”
Attendance one year reached as high as 31, Hirsch said.
She enjoyed the dip.
“It gave me a lot of energy,” she said from her home after her swim.
“I’m putting all my Christmas stuff away.”
June Williams, organizer of a plunge in Neah Bay, said a little boy was among the six people who ran into the surf at Front Beach in Neah Bay.
That’s way down from the 20 who braved the cold water in 2014.
“A lot people are wintering in,” she said.
Williams, who started the event in 2001, had said that the only requirement was to go under so that participants get their hair wet.
The Neah Bay Polar Bear Club awarded certificates to plungers and afterward some enjoyed hot soup and games.
Some 130 people leaped into the water for the 21st annual Mystery Bay Polar Bear Plunge.
“I’m doing this so I can feel alive,” said Ray Nak of Port Townsend, who jumped in twice.
“If you jump in once you might as well do it again.”
For others, such as County Commissioner David Sullivan, once was enough.
Sullivan said that he had always wanted to take the plunge but had never gone through with it and was then challenged by his friend Veda Wilson, who also jumped for the first time.
The weight of the jumpers on the floating dock outside the Nordland General Store pushed parts of the dock some 6 inches into the water.
Tom Rose, who founded the event when he bought the Nordland Store 20 years ago, has participated every year except for the last two.
“It’s an incredible, indescribable feeling to jump in,” Rose said.
“You can’t describe it, and when you get out you feel that you are almost high.”
As in previous years, more spectators than jumpers attended, with about 170 people on hand to watch those taking the plunge — and commenting that the ones who got wet were either brave or crazy.
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com
Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant contributed to this story.
