Yesterday afternoon, hundreds of stark raving lunatics hardy souls on Coney Island ran into the Atlantic Ocean to ring in 2013 with the annual Polar Bear Club swim. Beyond starting the year right with extreme shrinkage and glass-cutting nipples, participants raised money for Camp Sunshine, which serves children with serious illnesses, and Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. “It’s a way of grabbing 2013; grabbing the New Year by the collar and saying, ‘You know what? I’m not afraid of you. Bring on whatever you’ve got,' " New Jersey resident Peggy Excell-Stone told CBS 2.
Photographer Sam Horine was on hand in the 30-degree weather to document the madness, which another participant insisted wasn't really so mad. “In the grand scheme of what insanity can be, I would say this rates pretty low,” said one Keith Greenberg, who swims in the Atlantic Ocean every January with all the other sensible, rational people pictured here.
