“It makes you feel alive!”

This is Grace Pietsch’s immediate response when you ask why she does cold water immersions in Onset Bay three days a week through early April.

They will both “immerse” on January 1 when hundreds of people in the community take part in the Onset Bay Plunge at the Onset Bay Center. If you were around during last year’s event, you may have noticed a handful of people lingering in the water in a state of Zen after the plungers had exited the water in the same chaotic way they entered it. Those were the Onset Salty Merpeople. They are used to the cold water.

Grace Pietsch and Marese Barry-Belanger in Onset Bay after an immersion

On other days, Pietsch drives from Dartmouth to join her Merpeople friends for the challenging activity that the Buzzards Bay Coalition’s Onset Bay Center offers.

She and Marese Barry-Belanger, who lives walking distance from the Center in Onset, share a love for the water (no matter the temperature) and the many challenges and competitions that revolve around running, biking, and swimming (or some such combinations).

But immersing is only part of Barry-Belanger and Pietsch’s routine. Many mornings they do a mini triathlon of sorts. At 8:30, they run 4 miles; at 9:30 they immerse four minutes (“if Grace gets her way,” says Marese, “it’s five minutes); then immediately after the immersion, they walk another three miles.

By May, their plunging turns to swimming, short distances at first, then longer as the water warms up. More Merpeople who don’t consider themselves cold water swimmers join them.

Then come June, they both do the Buzzards Bay Swim for the Onset Salty Merpeople team. Barry-Belanger has done it for four years and was one of the swimmers who tested the course by swimming it the day before. Pietsch has done the Swim for seven years.

Barry-Belanger is originally from Ireland. She came to Massachusetts in 1988 and moved from Middleborough to Onset in retirement. She said she chose the quaint, little village on account of its easy and safe access to the Bay. (Likewise, Pietsch is grateful for living in Dartmouth; “It is a privilege to live near all of these properties.”)

Barry-Belanger was once a dedicated cyclist, but a serious accident made her switch to swimming for a time. She had struggled with it at first, but now sings its praises: “Swimming is amazing.”

They’ve both done triathlons. Pietsch has done Iron Man events in Maryland and two Mont-Tremblants (a triathlon with a swim route in Lac Tremblant and a bike course through Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains). Barry-Belanger did a ride from San Diego to St. Augustine to raise money for MS: 3,100 miles across 51 days with only six days rest.

For Pietsch, a lot of her cold water immersion gets her prepped for the yearly pilgrimage she makes up to Newport, Vermont, where there is an winter swimming festival with a variety of events in a 25-meter pool carved out of Lake Memphremagog.

Join Grace, Marese and hundreds from the community as we plunge into Onset Bay to celebrate the new year on January 1, 11:00am-1:00pm. For more information, go to www.savebuzzardsbay.org/onset-bay-center/