This post is about the Maryland State Police Polar Bear Plunge which took place on Saturday Jan. 30th at the Sandy Point State Park. The plunge is to help raise monies for the Special Olympics of Maryland, and from my last look, over 2 million dollars was raised.
Although I did not take the plunge myself, I was on the beach at the waters edge. It was the coldest day of the week and to top it off it started to snow at around 10:00 am and by 11:00 am there was enough snow coming down that walking around was difficult at best. However, I managed to get some good photos of strange people (they're all strange and crazy to go plunge at 24 degrees) and a few of the states best.
As you can see in the photo above a few people have a few cloths on. This one was very excited, but not sure if it was the beer doing most of the talking.
Here we have a Ravens Roost or Nest bus who came to show their support. As you can tell there is a considerable amount of snow coming down. Very fine flakes and some ice mixed in as well.
Here at the beach we have the states divers just getting out into the water. From there they will go father back and create a line to prevent plungers from going any further back. The US Coast Guard has tugged in a crane to hold The US flag.Here everyone behind me was waiting and shivering, dancing around to keep warm. Keeping the snow off my lens and camera was quite the challenge considering the wind kept blowing the snow at right angles. However I was smart enough not to keep it inside my coat because if I had the lens would be constantly fogging and freezing. Unfortunatley I did not have my plastic bag covers for this kind of weather. My camera is doing fine even though getting it back into the back pack it started to condensate. Thank you Nikon for having done a great job of sealing it. There was no condensate on the inside, all outside. Yeah!
Finally -
It did not take long for people to run in and then run right back out. Some just got their feet wet while others dove right in. You can see the line the divers made. A lot of what I heard was the "Oh my God, its so freaking cold" I think this phrase was used more than several hundred times. It's for a good cause so it's worth the little bit of cold.
Here is another one such strange individual. Sporting a lifeguard swimsuit and a blonde wig this plunger went all the way under.
A lone diver keeps a vigilant eye at the very edge of the plunge area. The Bay bridge is in the background while a police boat waits patiently in case of any emergency. Notice the divers are all wearing thermal dry suits...They're not crazy by no means. Very few people had to have emergency services out of the all who showed up.There were three set times for plungers. The first was the power plungers at 11:00 am and the second was at 1:00 pm. The third plunge was supposed to be at 3:00 pm but was canceled due to inclement weather...Wait! What! Inclement weather. Not sure if that really made sense or not.
I was with a group of plungers that raised over $6,000 called the Baltimore Tailgators Society.
Well now, I hope that made up for some of the lack of posting on my part. Hope you enjoyed this.
Until next time -
Peace,
Brian
