RECORD D SOUTH WHIDBEY
INSIDE
One unforgettable room See...A9
SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 2014 | Vol. 90, No. 2 | WWW.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.COM | 75¢
2014’s polar bears
Justin Burnett / The Record
Participants of the 10th annual Polar Bear Plunge charge the waters of Puget Sound Wednesday at Double Bluff beach park. With 190 swimmers, this was a record year for the event.
Record numbers brave the waters of Useless Bay By JUSTIN BURNETT South Whidbey Record Lined up like a medieval army, men, women, children and the elderly let loose screams of courage Wednesday and charged the chilly waters of Useless Bay for the 10th annual Polar Bear Plunge. Lunging, diving and in some cases tip-toeing, 190 people started the new year with a dip at Double Bluff park. Event
officials estimate even more stood on the beach to watch the spectacle unfold. “Probably about twice that amount were standing on the shores wondering, ‘Are you nuts?’ ” said Carrie Monforte, program coordinator for the South Whidbey Parks and Recreation District in an email to The Record. For recently engaged Roy Gordon and Nicole McClaskey of Coupeville, it was a great beginning for one of the biggest years of their lives.
“Starting the year of the wedding off with a bang,” said a dripping Gordon. “It’s a new tradition,” added McClaskey, as this was their second year participating. They noted the water was “really not that bad,” that the “adrenaline” seemed to dull the worst of Puget Sound’s frigid SEE PLUNGE, A16
South Whidbey driver high-wires car By BEN WATANABE South Whidbey Record
Ben Watanabe / The Record
Emergency responders evaluate a Toyota Camry that slid off the road and up the guy-wires of a power pole.
A teenage boy turned a little too fast onto Deer Lake Road on Thursday and ended up suspending his Toyota Camry on a power pole’s guy-wire. Neither the driver, a 16-year-old Greenbank resident, nor his passenger, also a teenage boy, were injured in the crash. It did, however, cause quite a scene at the intersection of
Deer Lake and Cultus Bay roads at about 1:30 p.m. “He’s a young driver, just not used to driving in the wet pavement and tried to make the turn instead of realizing he was going too fast,” Island County Sheriff’s Deputy Bo Miller said. Department deputies said the driver was heading south on Cultus Bay Road, a 50 mph zone, when he tried
to turn left onto Deer Lake Road. The road’s slick surface and the vehicle’s speed caused the car to slide forward and up the guy-wire. With the front end of the sedan suspended about six feet in the air and potentially teetering on the two inchthick wires, the boys crawled out of the sedan’s rear doors. The 45-degree SEE CAR, A16