It's happiness as usual on Yamba beaches during the holiday season

Pippi Beach, Yamba NSW
IMAGE: Yamba Weddings

Turners Beach, Yamba NSW
IMAGE: Clarence Coast Holiday Parks

Main Beach, Yamba NSW
IMAGE: Londoner in Sydney

The Courier - Mail, 29 December 2024:

If you’re a surf lifesaver and volunteer to patrol on Christmas, you’ll know what a rewarding experience it is.

Apart from the fact that doing a shift at the beach on our most venerated public holiday is virtue-signalling of the highest order, it offers an iron-clad excuse, if you need it, to get out of tricky family gatherings or participation in tedious board games.

It’s also the happiest day of the year to be on the beach. Everyone’s loving being there, and everyone appreciates the lifesavers being there.

Strangers will come up to patrol members and offer genuine thanks and/or some leftover pavlova.

Big tip for future reference: don’t put yourself in a situation that requires rescue after lunch on Christmas Day.

Another benefit of sitting in a chair for hours watching the crowd having fun between the yellow and red flags is that it offers the opportunity to let your mind freewheel, which is good exercise only without sweat.

On Wednesday, on patrol at Yamba, I turned on the TV in my head and skipped from topic to topic: wondering how various couples on the beach met, what do seagulls really think of us, do fish feel fear, using alliteration for amusement, how many prawns get eaten on Christmas Day, the enormous amount of equipment some people bring to the beach … and how lucky we are to be a swimming nation.

There were several families from overseas on the beach that day. They were easy to spot not because of their accents or wacky swimming costumes … it was the fact they wouldn’t go beyond ankle deep into the gentle surf.

Australia would be an entirely different country if we hadn’t embraced the aquatic life. It’s a credit to our culture that we put so much effort into teaching our kids to swim and that as a nation we are so confident in the water.

The OECD last year released a major report on the influence of swimming competence on people’s lives globally. Australia’s relationship with swimming is referenced repeatedly.

It makes for fascinating reading, and as I watched the kids bodysurfing a sentence in the report came to mind.

“The ability to swim, like other life skills such as being able to drive and cycle, broadens the horizon of the possible and empowers individuals.” Happy new year and see you down the beach.