Sullivan's Island Winter-Spring 2018-19

11 www.SullivansIslandMagazine.com | www.SullivansIslandHomes.com T he average Jan. 1 morning in the Lowcountry consists of adults nursing their hangovers and watching bowl games. Others show up at the gym to begin working on their New Year’s resolutions. But a few hundred others – sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on the weather – don their bathing suits and flock to Dunleavy’s Pub to start the New Year off right: by parading around in ridiculous costumes and running into a relatively freezing ocean, surrounded by a thousand or so onlookers. Dunleavy’s Polar Bear Plunge informally started about 25 years ago and has grown into a legendary annual occasion that brings in $30,000 to $40,000 in donations for the Special Olympics, according to Sandye Williams, director of development for Special Olympics South Carolina. My husband, Scott, and I will be there yet again this year, and it will be lucky plunge No. 13 for us. When people learn we are die-hard polar bear-ers, we get looks I imagine skydivers and bungee jumpers might receive, but the majority of friends we’ve convinced to give it a try wind up coming back year after year. Others remain adamant that we are crazy to voluntarily jump into freezing water, though they’ve still never tried it. Here’s what it’s like from a polar bear’s perspective. We pack as lightly as we can – towels and warm, dry clothes that are easy to put on quickly – and show up wearing costumes related to whatever funny theme our team has come up with for the year, with bathing suits underneath. We make our donations to the Special Olympics and then post up somewhere outside with Bloody Mary’s and cold beers and watch as the other polar bears begin to arrive. The people-watching is one of my favorite parts; there are the groups who show up in the same costumes each year like the “Shiny Happy People,” clad in skivvies and covered from head-to-toe in gold sparkles; the human-beer-pong team, a man being chased by someone in a polar bear suit; and, of course, the Dunleavy family, dressed to the nines in white tuxes with Irish-green bowties and cumberbunds. There are superheroes, men dressed like ladies, brave women in bikinis, kids wearing Halloween costumes and every Dunleavy’s Polar Bear Plunge From a Polar Bear’s Perspective By Anne Shuler Toole A group of polar bears prepare to “plunge.” Photo by Reid Green. Photo courtesy of Anne Toole..