We took off to the best dog beach ever this morning. I was set up with knitting and a camp chair under an umbrella, not obliged to mingle with horrible things like sun and sand. I love swimming in a big surf like at the Gold Coast, but hate sand. So I prefer not to go to the beach.
I was born in the Gold Coast, and as a child travelled from Brisbane back down every Sunday for Junior Surf Life Savers (Nippers) - which I totally rocked at mind you! I was always first in the swim, board and iron man.......and always dead last in the run and flags! Water = good. Sand = very bad. I remember the days of old which have set me up with a fair certainty that I will suffer from skin cancer at some point in my life. These were the days we were told to put on sunscreen, so we put a line of zinc across our noses and thought we were right.
Anyway, I digress. Today we took the dogs to the beach and it was most eventful.
1. We learned that we can not take our dogs to the beach. This dog beach is awesome! It's Leighton Beach at Cottesloe/Fremantle, and there are dozens and dozens of doggies running around off lead, jumping, playing, swimming, chasing........and then our dogs not wanting to go near the water, and one of them being very vicious with every other dog.
2. For the first time ever after spending a large proportion of my life on beaches at the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Burrum Heads, I saw a woman strip nekkid, go for a swim and get dressed again on the beach. Thing is, she honestly did it in such a non-event way that it wasn't even a spectacle. Nothing rude about it at all. The only thrill was that you really don't see that very often, so more of the curiosity of 'wow look at what she did' rather than 'wow look at the nekkid lady'.
3. For the second time I've ever experienced, there was a shark alert. The life guards drove down the beach waving everyone out of the water, there were helicopters, rubber duckies, boats, the whole shebang. About a month ago a surfer was killed by a shark in the Perth waters, so it makes it quite real. Apparently today there was a 5 meter white pointer shark circling the waters just off shore from where we were. I'm pretty sure the urban myth (or could be urban fact for all I know) is that dogs attract sharks, so we could have had a bit of a target on our heads I suppose. It was weird, because I'm so used to the Queensland Coast having shark nets to keep sharks away from the swimming areas, I didn't even think about sharks being able to get close. The only other time I have experienced a shark alert was one year as a Nipper one got through the shark net and the rubber duckie came panic stricken trying to pluck all the Nippers out of the water. That was kinda fun as a 10 year old - would scare the crappers out of me now I think.
Anyway, that was our day at the beach. We all got a little sunburnt in places - funny to see where the sunscreen missed skin in small patches. And everyone is dog tired, but sleeping fitfully after all the sun exposure. It was a lovely family day.
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