What a day...

On January 30th, 2010 we set out to serve coffee to the masses. Anyone who dared to brave the cold and take the plunge was going to get one of our tasty beverages if we had anything to do with it. We had a plan and knew exactly what was needed to execute it, at least that's what we thought anyway. Old Man Winter had different plans in store for us.

Thursday, January 28th, was the official set-up day for vendors. Unlike previous years, the Friday before the big Plunge on Saturday was going to include an additional day of plunging that involved Maryland high school students taking the dip in support of the cause, appropriately named the "Cool Schools Plunge". With that said, we had everything under control. We brought our event trailer, "The Mobile Party Machine" into the event that was so kindly donated by our long time friends Marcos and Maria Vieira, owners of Travelling Bean, into the park early Thursday morning and quickly placed it into position. In addition to providing specialty coffee service to all public attendees, we also were providing 24 hours of specialty coffee service to the Super Plungers who were set to kick things off the very next morning, Friday the 29th at 9:00am. After setting the trailer we moved all of the brewing equipment needed for the Super Plunger tent over to that venue and got everything set up and tested. The drinks were flowing beautifully.

Now, all that was left to do was to get out to the event first thing Friday morning around 7:00am and start brewing up pots of coffee for the Super Plungers in order to have things piping hot for their arrival at 8:00am. Simple enough, right? To our surprise, when we had arrived to get things started that morning we found our equipment frozen from the mercury dropping so low on the thermometer the night before. We had to scramble around and get the main water pump replaced in a flash in order to get the coffee flowing. A few technical challenges presented themselves as the day progressed but we were able to keep the Super Plungers caffeinated and assist with keeping them warm as they pressed on throughout the day and into the late hours of the night.

Saturday morning rolled around all too soon. The weather forecast was for temperatures to hold steady in the low to mid 20's throughout the day with some light snow to accumulate up to 1 - 2 inches. Of course, when we arrived at Sandy Point at around 6:30am that Saturday it was extremely cold but there wasn't a flake falling from the sky and the visibility was great. First item on a very long list of to do's to get things started that morning was to fire up the generators on the event trailer and get all of the equipment primed and ready for action.

The generators kicked on without hesitation. The roar of those two engines sounded like warmth and hot coffee was right around the corner. We were anxious to get that first pot brewing and more importantly get the first cup in our hands to help get our motors running too. All seemed to be going great, we had a crew on the roof of the trailer assembling our banner stands and another in the trailer getting everything set up and then...uh...oh...a major set-back.

Our main water pump for the entire event trailer along with the main water line that supplies all of the equipment were completely frozen solid. We couldn't believe it! We had to be ready to serve a frozen crowd hot beverages in less than hour. We did not have a back up pump and needed to act fast. Fortunately, we were able to get a heater over to the pump and get things thawed out in a hurry but the water line that supplies both the brewers and the espresso machine was frozen solid and was not going to thaw out anytime soon considering the weather conditions were already showing signs of getting worse. The only thing we could do was to re-plumb a new main water line to the equipment and that was inevitably going to delay our serving drinks to the crowd that was slowly forming as the buses kept bringing them in by the hundreds.

In the meantime, the wind picked up and completely snapped our banner stands on top of the trailer and almost blew the whole condiment table tent away with it. You could say things were going pretty well at this point. Nonetheless, we kept on plugging away at the challenges we were facing. After a bunch of failed attempts trying to fix our banner stand we finally let Mother Nature have her way and decided to not worry about it. We had then completed the plumbing work required to replace the water line for our equipment in the trailer and finally got everything working. Now, around two hours behind schedule we could get over to the Super Plunger tent and move the equipment from there and transfer it over to the Ram's Head Ice Lodge for the hot beverage service needed there. It would be a huge understatement to say that went off without a hitch. After some much needed help from more of our team members who were arriving to find things off to a shaky start and assistance from the Special Olympics Maryland Volunteers, we were able to get the Ice Lodge all set as well.

A big part of our morning was spent dealing with problems the weather had dealt us, but by mid-day, our H2O Initiative spokesman, Philippe Cousteau (Co-Founder & CEO of EarthEcho International), joined us to help promote our cause. Philippe was a great sport about the whole thing. He made the trip all the way out from California to get back in time for the event only to find that the weather was creating far too many complications to really be able to connect with the attendees who remained. Unfortunately, we had to cut his planned appearance there short due to failing weather conditions but he did stick around for our team's (the Shivering Beans) 1:00pm plunge.

We could not believe our eyes as we watched the snow fall. The energy on that beach with all of the dedicated plungers hyping themselves up to go against their instincts and take the leap into the, now slushy waters of the Chesapeake Bay was amazing! Our team of 15 members were no exception. They got right into the mood with everyone else; chanting and high fives galore while the MC on the stage started the countdown. Dressed in the full blown CBRC garb, the plungers were off...thousands of plungers ran through the wind and snow and braved their way into the rediculously cold water in front of them. Some jumped in head first while others waded in up to their waists. Regardless of how deep they plunged, all of their hearts warmed up the water at that point in history. It was a truly brilliant experience. It made us forget about all of the problems we had faced that day and jarred our memories as to the real reason we were there to begin with.

What a day! This will be an experience that each of us will cherish for a lifetime. We cannot wait to see what's in store for next year's Plunge. We hope to make it bigger and better and will definitely be more prepared for whatever nature intends to throw at us!

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