ROCK HALL — With a smile on his face and his firefighter’s helmet in hand, Wyatt Toulson shakes off droplets of water as he wades out of the chilly Chesapeake Bay at Ferry Park Beach on Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.
Toulson, 18, and a dozen or so other folks participated in the annual New Year’s Big Dip to benefit the Rock Hall Volunteer Fire Company.
Collectively, they helped to raise $525 in donations, according to fire company officials.
Rock Hall Mayor James Cook, who also is a member of the RHVFC, fire company President Andy Glenn and Emily Thomas, an EMT with the fire company, took the Big Dip too while fire company Chief Mike Pinder supported the effort from land.
The crowd of well-wishers, all wearing weather-appropriate attire of winter coats, hats and gloves, was estimated at 60 to 70 people.
According to The Peoples Bank clock in town, the air temperature was 32 degrees when the group rushed into the Bay at noon. It was actually colder than that due to a stiff wind blowing at the beach.
“Not bad at all,” a bare-chested Cook said as he toweled off afterward.
“The water temperature was probably warmer than the air,” Cook said.
And he was right.
According to NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System, the water temperature near Rock Hall was about 38 degrees.
The first Big Dip was held in 2008.
Last year’s event was cancelled twice — on New Year’s Day because of gale-force winds on the Bay and in February because of ice buildup on the beach — before finally coming off in March.
— Photo by Trish McGee
