NEW CASTLE — Josie Cutts has always enjoyed doing things with her mom, Nina, but said she never dreamed they would jump together into the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean Saturday along with 25 other hearty souls.



For Nina Cutts, it would be her fourth year of jumping into the frigid waters to help the Portsmouth Rotary Club raise money for several local nonprofit groups and high school scholarships. There was only one way Nina and Josie would be able to fulfill the mother/daughter partnership.



The Kittery Point, Maine, women held hands as they ran from the beach at New Castle's Town Common into the ocean and quickly ran back out.



"It was beyond freezing," said Josie Cutts after she changed into some warm, dry clothes and warmed up inside the rotary club's warming tent. "It was really fun, really fun. We screamed a lot."



The rotary club staged its sixth annual Polar Bear Swim event Saturday afternoon to raise money for a variety of local nonprofit groups and college scholarships for Portsmouth High School students, according to Jamie DeStefano, the rotary's president-elect.



Deb Rourke, the event's chairwoman, said each adult swimmer has to contributed $250 each in sponsorships to participate. She said each child age 12 to 18 has to contribute $100 in sponsorship money, and each member of the rotary's Interact group at Portsmouth High School is allowed to contribute whatever money they can raise to swim.



Peter Billup of Eliot, Maine, the former chairwoman of the event, said the swim has raised a total of $40,000 over the past five years. He said an average of 25 to 30 people swim in the frigid ocean water each year and tend to raise between $8,000 to $10,000 each year.

Billup said he is concerned the event might not raise as much money this year because of the struggling economy. But there was no shortage of excitement and enthusiasm from those who showed up.



Karen Wendell, the rotary's past president, and DeStefano were part of a group of rotarians and community members from Dover who dressed up as swashbuckling pirates and rode around the common on a pick-up truck decorated as a pirate ship. Last year, Wendell said the group sported a Lara Croft Tomb Raider theme.



Swimmers young and old arrived in full force on the cold beach before 1 p.m. and stripped down to just bathing suits in some cases or to sweat pants and T-shirts.



Mark Dooley, New Castle's deputy fire chief, said the department had three EMTs and three divers in the water along with four other firefighters standing by with a fire-rescue ambulance if any swimmer needed medical attention.



Dooley said the air temperature was a cool 24 degrees and the water temperature was 40 degrees when the group of swimmers ran into the ocean for their plunge.



Dooley said as long as the swimmers didn't remain in the water or in their wet clothes too long after leaving the water, they would avoid hypothermia.

The swimmers quickly made their way to a warming tent equipped with two gas heaters where they enjoyed steaming hot bowls of chili and clam chowder along with warm beverages.



"It's the worst on your feet," said one female swimmer as she ran toward the warming tent.



Wendell, who completed her fifth annual plunge, said, "It was cold. It was really, really cold."



Josie Cutts agreed that running out of the water was more difficult than jumping into the freezing water.



"When you ran up the beach, it was really awful," said Josie Cutts, adding "It was definitely worth it."



When asked what it takes to work up the courage to jump into such freezing cold water, Billup said it is quite simple.



"You can't think about it too much. You just do it. It's cold. It's a real shock to your system. Once you're out of the water and you're wrapped in a blanket and you're having chowder and chili, you feel like you've accomplished something," he said.