Surfin' W.A.

Don’t blame it on the sunshine

Don’t blame it on the UV

Don’t blame it on the good times

Blame it on the Boogie (board)

 

OK, So I live in some sort of fantasy-land.

Google. This is truly how it happened. I swear. Don’t hate me. It was luck. When Brad the Tradie and I decided to up sticks from Boganvillea, there were a couple of criteria. Not many, but...

• There had to be one of those Paradise Lost beaches near my lovely new house,

• Close proximity to International Airport and Cruise dock (one doesn’t like to travel in order to travel if you get my drift),

• There had to be family no more or less than an hour away (close enough to get to, but far enough for them to have to make an appointment),

• I got to quit work to do whatever I felt like each day, and

• We’d have no mortgage.

Not many criteria, but… you know, I am a bit demanding. How was Super-husband supposed to fulfil the brief? Using the bloody Netterweb of course.

Within a blink the man had Googled our new life.

Beachvillea. South West Western Australia. He showed me Google Earth this and thats of a block of land and house floor plans and … blah blah… I saw the ocean and said, “Yeah, go for it.” Given that I was getting permission to chuck in my job and live like a beach bum, the only thing left to worry about was lady fur removal from the nether regions really. And building up a decent collection of thongs.

I grew up with no ocean.

Which, if you consider all the advertising for Australia and the ‘typical Aussie’ whatsits, made me feel a bit ripped off. Nope, I wasn’t even a farmgirl. A bogan towngirl in the middle of nowhere with a public high school and a river (yes, one of those rivers that would break its banks and flood the town every now and then), dreaming of beachside living with a man called… Brock, or Brent, or Brick… or… some other Br name. And a snorkel.

And so here we are, our first summer in Beachvillea and as it turns out it’s bloody nice here.

Like… reallllly nice. I have a snorkel. I splashed out, and after much research, braved it at Rebel Sport, where all the ... ummm... sporty people hang out, spoke to an adolescent in board shorts and bought a snorkel.  I go to see my fish each day at our beach, which has a reef just out a bit. We play a game, the fish and I. I look for them. They swim a little. I follow. They swim faster. I swim faster. They win by hiding or swimming away. Simple, yet fun and excellent exercise. Good for that ‘back of the knees’ tan that I’ve been aiming for. When I get sick of that, I lie on the beach and read the free books the over-funded public library likes to buy me. Whilst I haven’t fallen asleep yet… I may be slipping into a lifestyle coma.

Which is why it’s good that the adolescent (BHG) invited the BFF from Boganvillea to come stay for a bit this summer holidays.

Two fifteenish girls built like praying mantises (praying mantii???) who don’t so much eat, but ‘harvest’ and keep me young whilst making me feel old. They giggle. And like mini hair-straighteners. And buy each other gobstoppers and have sleepovers in each other’s rooms and all those other cute things.

We call BFF ‘Bounce’. She’s the Energiser Bunny who just keeps on keeping on. An impossibly nice and cute little gymnast, who, in her size nothing pink wetsuit, managed to learn to surf in three days. The next time she gets in the water Bounce will possibly be doing a three and a half rotations twist with perfect ten landing whilst riding a pipeline wave. Whilst photographing Bounce and BHG (who can stand on the board which is much better than expected… I was hoping for anything above a trip to Emergency) I pretty much felt like Greenpeace might come along and roll my nearly forty year old self back in the water. Except that all the other parents with cameras were much fatter than me and some were jiggly with VERY low hanging boobs, which, I must say, gave me a moment of indulgent vanity. I had a nicer pair of togs on too. And I got to point at my two gorgeous twiggies and say, “Yes, they’re with me. Which one’s your child? The ugly fat one who can’t stand up on the board? Or the one that’s drowning over there….”

It hadn’t computed with me, or the twiggies, just how much we’d rely on the water for entertainment in summer.

Bounce met me at the Qantas counter with luggage resembling a mini-fridge for a ten-day beach break. Whereas what we wear ‘round these parts is pretty much togs and thongs. Took me ages to get used to that too. I have a walk-in-wardrobe full of high heeled boots and leather jackets, yet arrived here with one pair of rubber thongs. Actually, we even skip the thongs unless the sand’s hot. Accessories consist of a beach bag and a water bottle. Maintenance is a shower afterwards. And yet, funnily enough, you end up with clear skin, fab hair and a healthy glow. And a few tanlines. And a thing for vacuuming sand off everything. I have my own ‘man with a Br name’ now too. He doesn’t like to use my snorkel because it’s purple. Real men have a black snorkel apparently. Like Darth Vader.

So with Bounce now gone and BHG the locust off learning to sew with her Gran (yes, Western Australia is SO quaint isn’t it?) I’ve been left to go spend time with the fishies, pretending to chase them and watching them laugh when I try to dive under and choke on sea water in my snorkel.

Surfin’ W.A. is quite noice though. There’s nothing quite like watching the sunset over the Indian Ocean with a bevvie in one hand and ‘Bucket of Skin’ in the other. It’s worth exfoliating, waxing, shaving, moisturising, vacuuming and ummm… doing that all over for. Any day. Every day. You can hate me now.

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Surfin' USA. The Beach Boys, 1963.