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Deborah Bay residents join their friends and family in taking a midwinter plunge into the waters of Otago Harbour yesterday.
Longtime Deborah Bay resident Nick Menzies said the annual ‘‘jetty jump’’ had been a tradition for the past 20 years or so.
His family started the tradition, which involved jumping off the jetty at Deborah Bay and into Otago Harbour in the middle of winter, but over the years it had evolved to include extended friends and family, as well as other people from Port Chalmers and Dunedin.
It was now ‘‘unstoppable’’.
‘‘Our kids started it and they’ve made us continue it against our better judgement,’’ Mr Menzies said.
‘‘My wife wakes up every time we’re going to do it and she’s like: ‘I don’t want to do this. I wish we could just stop doing this’.’’
Some years they reached as many as 25 participants.
About 12 jumpers initially took the plunge yesterday, but then a second jump had to be done after another cohort arrived minutes later.
Mr Menzies thought the water was way colder last year.
‘‘We all screamed a lot more last year.
‘‘I didn’t have a brain freeze at all, like I normally do.’’