Sydney beaches are some of the most beautiful in the world, and the most famous of them is Bondi Beach.  Get on a train at Town Hall heading to Kings Cross and you’ll most likely end up in a car full of yunguns wearing board shorts and bikinis. Some drag surfboards. Others drag children, prams and fraying patience. They all ride to the end of the line, Bondi Junction, then catch the 380 bus to Bondi Beach.

    Before departing for Sydney, I was in touch with an acquaintance who owns a flat here. He mentioned an art event called Sculpture by the Sea. It is just what it sounds like – sculptures installed close to the beach along the cliff trail that stretches between Bondi and Bronte beaches and beyond. I decided to take this in on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, but chose to begin the walk at Coogee Beach, which is much farther out, because someone had told me that the works stretched that far. Either I misunderstood or the event changed, because I walked 2.5 kilometers to Bronte Beach before I saw any art. I have noticed a pattern developing here that I tend to believe what people tell me and act accordingly. It’s often problematic. Whatever. I got to see the art and that’s what I wanted, and since there were lots of benches along the way, as well as water fountains where I could refill my bottle, all was right.

    I wish I could tell you specific information about each work and the artist that created it, but sadly, I can’t. The event opened officially over the weekend, and I was there on Wednesday. That meant that not all the work was installed, or not completely installed, or not tagged accordingly. But I got a couple tan lines, anyway, and got to Bondi where I found a spot to lie in the sun out of the wind before I caught the bus and train back to the city.

    Besides the well-known beaches like Bondi and Bronte, there are smaller inlets, many of them sheltered from prevailing winds. Of course, they aren’t surfing beaches, but the water is still wet and cold and the sand is still warm. Just about all of these inlets has its own Surf Life Saving Club, complete with ocean pools and stuff like that. Which brings us to another form of sculpture by the sea, The Australian Lifeguard.  Just how does one become a lifeguard in Australia?

Photo from Google Images

    First of all, you have to be gorgeous. At least, that’s the conclusion I came to after watching one of the most popular Australian reality series, “Bondi Rescue.”  “Bay Watch” got nothing on these guys, primarily because the “cast,” if you will, aren’t actors. They’re cool and nice to look at and quite good at keeping swimmers between the flags and rescuing stupid or careless people from certain death. Maybe this curiosity of “Mommy, where do really studly lifeguards come from?” should have occurred to me before, because of the show “Bay Watch,” and I live in California and all of that. But until I saw all of these surf clubs, I never considered that life guarding is a career and the effort that goes into it. Plus, the profession is a way of life. There is a lifeguard exchange, sort of like exchange students, life guarding in different parts of the world. There’s even a lifeguard exchange visa. There’s a Life Guard magazine. I might be stating the obvious here, but lifeguards are, in fact, professional athletes.

    Sexy Bondi is the beach that gets a lot of attention (including a visit from David Hasselhoff himself), but Bronte is where surf lifesaving actually began. Surfing was actually against the law in Australia in the 1800s, but the law was freely flaunted (as stupid laws are) and surfers sometimes found themselves in trouble, courtesy of a rip tide called the Bronte Express. After a drowning in 1895, a handbook was assembled, drills and training commenced and before the end of the 19th century, lifeguards were giving demonstrations on technique at local pools.  The first groups of life savers was formed at Bronte in 1903. 

  Most surf and life saving clubs have ocean pools where lifeguards train and swim lessons are taught and so forth. To me, even the ocean pools look terrifying, even with their sturdy concrete walls and iron railings.

   

    Next, off to Melbourne.