Once again, it appears that hundreds of people may have questionable sanity (or perhaps they are the only sane ones) as they gathered on Alki Beach (masked and vaxed) to plunge into the cold waters of Puget Sound to mark the new year on January 1.

Event organizer Mark Ufkes noted that with the current cold snap "the water is 20 degrees warmer than the air!" which likely proved to be cold comfort for ladies in bikini's and men in trunks.

Precisely at 10am Ufkes began the countdown, his bullhorn blaring the announcement. 

Shrieks of either shock or joy or a combination soon followed as people ran headlong into the water, many holding hands, and others going solo. 

Ufkes summed it up best perhaps by saying, "Sanity is overrated."