For those of you looking for a few photos of the Polar Bear Swim at Lake Padden from noon today, you are in luck. Penny, my wife has made it a habit each year to jump in some body of water on January 1. Today was no exception. The temperature was better then it has been on a couple prior Polar Bear swims. Actually as Polar Bear swim days go for Bellingham today wasn't too bad.

Lake Padden is the most popular spot to jump into a body of water in Bellingham, however for Whatcom County, Birch Bay tends to get a larger total crowd.

As you can see there was a clock providing the time. This helped set the stage for a good entry since we weren't waiting for someone on a P.A. to count down the time and let everyone know exactly when 12:00 was at least as far as the master Lake Padden Clock. Around 11: 58:46 you could start to hear people counting down the time, 14, 13, 12... Once it got down to 10 seconds everyone was counting down to the ultimate plunge of 2009.

Here are a rapid series of photos because otherwise I wouldn't have got too many photos of people in the water since for obvious reasons participants got in and got out in probably under 15 seconds on average of jumping in the water.

It was kind of nice this year in that there were a few heaters set-up at the top so that those who were cold after the plunge could warm up a bit, but ultimately it seemed like those watching used them more then those who actually jumped in.

By 1 minute and 46 seconds later virtually everyone who had jumped in was already out.

So next year on New Years day, when you are wanting to do something completely crazy and out of character. . .

Jump in Lake Padden. . .

Posted by Glenn Sanford.  Want to contact Glenn Direct?  email: Glenn@BuyerTours.com or Phone: 360-220-1470.

Labels: Lake Padden, Photos, Polar Bear Swim