According to weather folklore, Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog will stick his head out of his Pennsylvania burrow this Saturday and determine if spring is on its way.
His prediction may be fine for the rest of the country, but folks in Hull follow a different harbinger. Instead of a furry rodent, they hang their warm-weather hopes on the Drowned Hogs, who for the past 13 years have braved the frigid waters off Nantasket Beach in search of the truth.
Legend has it that if the Hogs "frolic" in the icy water, spring's around the corner. If they turn around and head straight back to shore, we face six more weeks of winter.
The Drowned Hogs - whose yearly plunge raises money for the Wellspring Multi-Service Center in Hull - started with a handful of men who rode the commuter boat together into Boston every day.
"Hull is a small town and the crazy people seem to flock together," said Scott Plympton, a founding Hog. "We were bored one winter, so we just said, 'Let's go swimming.' "
And they did, on Groundhog Day. Afterward, they "emptied their pockets" for Wellspring, and a tradition was born. This Saturday, organizers expect the swim will attract around 300 seaworthy souls. More, they say, if the weather is good.
As the years passed, the tradition grew to include the Drowned Hog Ball, which revs up the faithful the night before the swim, and the Nantasket Soup and Chowder Festival, which warms them up afterward.
The Hogs have even penned their own rhyme, which holds its own against the substantial body of Groundhog Day verse already out there:
If the Drowned Hogs frolic in the icy brine,
Spring will arrive right on time.
But if they dunk, scream, and run right out,
There will be a six-week bout.
Plympton maintains that the Hogs mean no disrespect to Punxsutawney Phil. "But really," he asked, "who cares about a groundhog seeing his shadow? This is New England!"
The Drowned Hogs consider themselves "in the same club" as Phil and his groundhog ilk, Plympton said, but "we believe we have the lock on the Atlantic Ocean crowd."
In these parts at least, it appears they do. Each year, he said, 400 or so people gather on the beach to "watch us idiots jump in." Among those "idiots" in the past have been seniors, little kids, and all types in between - including the entire Hull High School football team.
Drowned Hog membership is wide open to anyone not too chicken. But there are rules. Your swim doesn't count unless you fully submerge. Wetsuits are allowed, but only if the people wearing them accessorize with tiaras and tutus.
Plympton recalls one year when the low-tide water was so cold the Hogs were running through actual slush. "It was a Slurpee out there," he said with a laugh.
Then there are the scant few who take their time in the brine regardless of the temperature.
"Some people swim around like seals as the minutes tick by," Plympton said. "That's way beyond my endurance."
He considers himself lucky that his wife, Judy, is a Drowned Hog "designated dryer," or holder of his towel.
The popular event is now a weekend-long celebration. Festivities begin Friday night at the Red Parrot on Nantasket Avenue with the Drowned Hogs Ball, which is also billed as an "anti-freeze" party. Admission is free, and the Pemberton All-Stars (Plympton - fittingly enough - is the band's lead singer), entertain the crowd with slightly-modified tunes such as "[You Ain't Nothing But a] Drowned Hog."
"The ball gives us a chance to convince people to participate who might otherwise get cold feet - excuse the pun," said Vinny Harte, executive director of Wellspring and a longtime Drowned Hog himself.
Hogs raise money by collecting pledges from landlubber friends and neighbors in the weeks before the event. Last year, they collected $20,000.
On Saturday, chefs from 11 area restaurants - all with recipes for chowder, soup, or chili in hand - will converge in the Red Parrot's banquet kitchen and start cooking for the second annual Nantasket Soup and Chowder Festival after the plunge. Then hundreds of people who've paid $10 for the privilege will taste and judge their concoctions. A friendly awards ceremony will cap off the party.
"The chefs mostly all know each other," said Bea D'Angelo, who along with her husband, Richard, owns the Red Parrot. "If one of them forgets some ingredient, somebody else will share."
Besides benefiting Wellspring, Harte said, Chowderfest helps promote the town. The same can be said for $10 discount buttons, available at each event, that offer discounts at local businesses for the duration of the weekend. "It's a nice partnership," he said.
"People like to help us out," Harte said of Wellspring, which combines a food pantry, free transportation, counseling, teen and adult education, computer training, and more under one umbrella. "Everyone relates to what we do. Everyone knows someone who at some time has accessed the kind of services we provide."
The Drowned Hogs 13th annual swim is Saturday at noon. Participants meet at the Mary Jeanette Murray Bathhouse on Nantasket Beach. Visit drownedhogs.org or call Wellspring at 781-925-3211.
