Freezing water? What’s that?

Published 1:30 am Sunday, January 3, 2021

PORT ANGELES — Neither sewage nor cold deterred Kirk and Tresa Sehlmeyer from welcoming the brand new year with a dip into Port Angeles Harbor.

The Sehlmeyers, he 37 and she 40, ran about 4 feet into the placid water mid-morning Friday, dunked their heads, and came out, toweling off and shivering just a little.

While tiny waves spilled onto Hollywood Beach in a whooshing cadence, they watched as a bikini-clad woman intrepidly raced into the water, actually swam for a second, climbed out and ran away.

“It feels like a nice day in June here,” Tresa said.

Several others also braved the cold to wash off 2020 for a sparkling new year.

They included Bruce Monro of Port Angeles who had a bucket of ice water poured over his head.

A Polar Bear Plunge at Lake Pleasant was the only one organized on the North Olympic Peninsula, where some 25 people took a dip in the lake.

As in Port Angeles, independents showed up for a dunk in the water on Marrowstone Isaland.

They seemingly gave little thought to the frigid water or the 1.5 million gallons of stormwater and raw city sewage that poured into the harbor and Strait of Juan de Fuca on Dec. 21 during a heavy rainfall.

Dan Weldon, who has organized the Port Angeles dip in the past, said Wednesday that COVID-19 and the sewage overflow nixed what would have been the 34th annual event. In recent years, it also had served as a benefit for Volunteer Hospice of Clallam County.

Until Friday, it had been organized and held without fail since Ronald Reagan was president, according to Weldon.

That includes 2019, when a Enterococci bacteria health warning was lifted four days before the plunge. Participants were urged to shield their eyes, noses, mouths and open wounds from the water.

That did not keep dozens from doing the ritualistic three-times-in, three-times-out routine. Putting your head underwater is an unspoken rule.

The recent sewage overflow, which did not prompt health officials warning-flag contact with the water, did not bother Kirk a bit.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture resource conservationist grew up in Ohio, where the polluted Cuyahoga River, which bisects Cleveland, would catch fire.

“If you grew up where I grew up, you’d swim in this every day,” he said.

“People complain about the water. They don’t know what bad water quality is here.”

The couple has lived in Port Angeles two years, doing the dip last year at Hollywood Beach after moving from the colder climes of Sand Point, Idaho, where they polar-bear dipped for several straight years.

They have Idaho friends who swim with their 4-year-old — unless the lake freezes over.

“I feel like a wuss doing it here, because, you know, my legs aren’t frozen, I’m not being blown off a pier,” Tresa said.

“We wouldn’t be standing here talking to you in Idaho,” Kirk added.

The annual pattern of taking the annual dip is a steady ball that flicked forward keep rolling: You do it one year, and you have to do it every year, he said.

“It’s just something good to start the first of the year,” Kirk added.

After continuing the tradition in Port Angeles, the swim rouses in Tresa a state of mind that overshadows goosebumps.

“Now, it’s a thing, it’s a wonderful thing,” she said.

“What an awesome, beautiful event you’ve got, and you know, you commune with that, and in that moment, it’s so inspiring.”

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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.