Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Lewes Polar Bear Plunge

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

On Sunday Robert and I went down to Rehoboth Beach to join in the Lewes Polar Bear Plunge. The Polar Bear Plunge benefits Special Olympics Delaware and this was our second year participating. Between the two of us we contributed over $200 without even trying to hard to raise donations.

Robert Polar Bear Plunge

The night before The Plunge I was at a Keller Williams show in Baltimore, MD and Rob�rt was playing a show in Philadelphia at Luminare. Neither of us got home until around 3AM the night before and we were up by 8AM to drive down for The Plunge, we were a little Deeter to say the least.

The Plunge actually went well. We got down late for registration yet there were no lines, so that was great. We had a little medicine and coffee before The Plunge so we were in full Drater mode. The air temperature that day was 29�F with a wind chill of 20�F and the water temperature was a steamy 44�F. Honestly it was cold, but I wasn�t cold like that � I didn�t even wear a jacket while we were standing out there waiting for like two hours before The Plunge.

The best part for me is always the fifteen minutes before The Plunge. You get to watch the energy level rise like ten fold. People start slowly undressing to become acclimated to the temperature. All of the groups seem to become more of a single unit feeding off of each other. It is actually really a great feeling. Then it counts down, two minutes, one minute, thirty seconds (at this point it is crazy!), then suddenly people just start running for the ocean and it’s on!

Brian Polar Bear Plunge

I love running in, seeing how far I can go out before the first wave hits, then just letting go and jumping. The initial part of going under water is literally breath taking. You can not breath, you can not see, it’s a little disorientating. BUT, it is a great exciting rush. If there were other Draters I knew, I could be convinced to go once a month for all of winter, maybe.

After The Plunge, we headed down to Dogfish Head to grab a bite to eat and some anti-freeze to drink. We both got soup and some beers. We got to try their new Summer seasonal (in February) which is Festina Peche. It was a nice light and crispy peach beer with a nice sour twang. I would love to drink it in the summer, probably by the pint, but all we got was 8oz. for five dollars. Sometimes I really don’t understand DFH’s pricing structure.

After the quick stop at DFH it was time to go home and take a hot shower then off to a Super Bowl gathering. It turned out to be a really nice day, I wish all of my days were so full with things I wanted to do.