Rather than warming up after a snow day with a cup of coffee or bowl of soup indoors, a group of polar plungers just couldn’t get enough of the cold.
“That was brutal,” said Dennis Meehan, a Charlottean who leapt into the Catawba River Saturday afternoon for the first Polar Plunge and Oyster Roast hosted by Belmont’s Riverside Marina and Aquatic Adventures of Charlotte.
Polar plunges are wintertime events held to raise money, often for charitable organizations, where participants enter a body of water, despite the shivering temperature.
Meehan was one of about a dozen to plunge into the crisp, 48-degree river at Riverside Marina. A regular swimmer, Meehan opted to wear just a bathing suit.