BAR HARBOR – Despite the 58-degree Fahrenheit water, a mass of goosebumps-covered swimmers gathered Friday afternoon on the College of the Atlantic pier and leaped into the waves for the college’s annual swim to Bar Island.

“I’m going for the thrill of it. It’s kind of like the lemming thing. Everyone else is doing it,” said Aaron Lewis, a first-year student from Detroit, Mich., who had decorated his torso with bright blue polka dots in honor of the occasion.

Environmental law professor Ken Cline founded the tradition 11 years ago to get students into the sea and has missed only a single swim since – and that on doctor’s orders, he said.

“I realized I had been here for a year and had never been in the water,” Cline said, standing on the pier before the swim

So, during the first week of school in 1990, Cline and four students decided to christen the college’s new pier by jumping into Frenchman Bay and swimming the third of a mile to Bar Island.

Now, new students hear about the swim before they even come to campus. Whether through peer pressure or ignorance of Maine weather, a huge crop of first-year students turn out for the swim each fall.

“It’s become so institutional now that I don’t even have to recruit,” Cline said. “It’s hard to imagine not starting the school year this way.”

On Friday, the group of swimmers had swelled to more than 70 students, faculty and staff members, including COA President Steve Katona.

“The island looks farther away every year,” Katona joked, as he made his fourth swim on Friday. “I think somebody moved the darned thing.

“It doesn’t feel good at first. Anyone would be lying to you if they said it did. It hurts at first. The first year I did it as naked as possible. Now I’ve decided that I need protection,” Katona said, donning a rubber swim cap, ear plugs and goggles.

Some students wore knitted wool caps to keep their heads warm, or even full wetsuits. Others just grabbed their bikinis or trunks and prepared for the swim mentally.

“This is the first time I’ve ever swam in water this cold,” Jennifer Jones, a first-year student from New Mexico said. Her parents watched her inaugural swim from the dock.

“I’m a little afraid,” she said. “But people at home said I wouldn’t be able to do it, so I want to prove them wrong.”

Carter Tew, a first-year student from Connecticut, had ventured before into cold, ocean water, but never for the half-hour or so it took him to reach Bar Island.

“I swim, usually, for about 10 seconds,” Tew said, as a friend used blue paint to decorate his chest with the words “Bar or Bust.”

Each first-time swimmer justified the chilly dip his own way.

“We don’t get the opportunity to do this in New York,” said Kristen Biondi, a first-year student from the Big Apple.

“Why do it? Why not?” said Chris Tremblay, a transfer student from Peabody, Mass.

The pier sagged under the weight of all the swimmers before they jumped off the edge, screaming and laughing as they struck the water. Soon, their heads bobbed on the waves like so many seals all across the bay.

Some, like senior Vori Kiss from Hungary, who made the crossing in the shortest time of just over 15 minutes, did a professional-looking crawl stroke to the island and backOthers dog-paddled their way across and celebrated with a chest-banging Tarzan dance on the Bar Island rocks before catching a ride back to campus on one of ten rescue boats.

But hot chocolate and applause awaited the whole shivering crowd when they climbed back onto the pier in search of dry clothes.

Joshua Machat, a sophomore swimmer from Massachusetts, knew to bring wool and fleece to wear following his dip.

“I didn’t really expect to do it again – that last third gets difficult. But before I knew it, I was here,” he said as he pulled on layers of clothes. “It definitely marks the beginning of the academic year here. It cleanses the mind.”