The Gold Coast. If you say it, the name 'Gold Coast' brings about images alternatively of beautiful sand and pirates. The Gold Coast stretches more than a hundred feet, in case you wanted to know and incorporates places with fanciful sounding names like Coolangatta, Binna Burra, Burleigh Heads and Canungra. From New South Wales all the way to (basically) Brisbane, Queensland, white sand beaches cover the coast like the edges of a table cloth. The sand is so soft that as you step on top of it, you sink ankle deep. The sand is so hot, however, you run across the top of it attempting not to scald the bottoms of your feet (and your ankles). You can always tell the tourists because they dance down the sand as if with each step some kind of Sand Ness Monster is seeking to rip the toes from their feet, all the while Australians try to act tough by walking barefoot across the molten sand, nonchalantly looking hither and yon wondering if anyone is watching, but on their face is written their pain. Secretly, inside their brains they are yelling, "Ouch, ouch, ouch, I've got to get to the water."
The sand is so hot, I'm surprised it hasn't turned to glass yet.
(Surfers' Paradise, Gold Coast, QLD)
We took off yesterday morning early, loaded up the snacks, the boogie boards, the beach towels and books (all the necessities of beach life) and drove the ninety minutes to a place called Surfer's Paradise. What a great name for a beach. It's a misnomer, though. There weren't many surfers, but there were a whole lot of young men and women parading in front of each other with such small amounts of fabric covering their bodies, I thought perhaps that a small trip on the sand would send the swimsuit flying through the air in explosive glory. I'm not puritanical with regards to bathing suits; When young and searching for a mate, just like any other animal, I guess, it only goes by human nature that we show our, um, assets. I think the guys are the best, though. We watched a BBC documentary a while ago called Planet Earth and there was one section on birds of paradise who, when looking for a mate, will fluff their feathers and go to extraordinary lengths, dancing and prancing in order to attract the attention of the females. There were quite a few male birds of paradise preening and pec popping yesterday. As we walked along Surfer's Paradise beach, there was a row of young men, shirtless, of course, in the mid afternoon baking sun, actually comparing muscles while alternatively looking up to see if any girls were watching. Maybe I'm jealous, but my guess is, I'm at an age now where pec popping is far too strenuous, and I'm not sure that Christine would actually be impressed. Either way, I'm happy to keep my sunsafe top on, lathered in sunscreen and holding on to the hands of an assortment of one or two of my daughters and wife. I'm sure if there was one girl on the beach who would notice me, it would be because, after struggling in from the surf, I had something hanging from my beard.
We parked only steps from the magma temperatured sand. The girls, wriggling in the back seat, were unhooked from seat belts milliseconds after arriving and standing by the trunk in anxious anticipation. They wanted their boogie boards. Riding on the waves was what they'd been dreaming about during these school holidays. After gathering their boogie board and 'ouching' down the beach across the sand, they shed whatever accessories we asked them to carry and headed straight into the water. Christine and I took our time and then we walked to the edge of the continent to let the consistent waves lap our shins and allow the voice of the ocean to drown out any thoughts of stress that might have occurred in the last week.
Within half an hour, though, the Greta came back to us itching. At first we thought she'd just got some sand under the swimsuit, which is pretty natural, but then we noticed the red welts. As we were examining her, Josephine approached us with the same problem. Sure enough, right behind her was the third musketeer.
Sea lice.
What? When Christine said, 'sea lice', I thought to myself, "Here we go, another one of these made up Australian words (or things) to make me look a little foolish when I gullibly accept that she, as my loving wife, would always tell me the truth." Just a few weeks ago, on a hike, we stopped the root of tree which was making a noise. I was fascinated until Christine told me what it was. "Farting tree," she said with a look of total sincerity. "What?" I asked. "Yes, very rare. You don't normally get to hear them, but these trees build up with gasses from the ground and then, occasionally, they release those gasses through their exposed roots. It sounds exactly like a fart." I'm not normally naive, but she looked so trustworthy, like a one carat diamond on top of an engagement ring, but I was to find out that her words were cubic zirconium. "That's fascinating," I said, swallowing her words hook line and sinker. She began to laugh.
"It's a frog hidden in the roots, silly. I can't believe you fell for it. Wait till I tell my brothers." Just what we all need is brothers-in-law making farting noises (real or imagined) every time you are near.
So, when she said 'sea lice,' I was on guard. Farting is one thing, but scratching myself incessantly is another. "No, really, sea lice. They are really small creatures that, like mosquitoes, bite the skin causing welts. They live in the ocean, usually in the sea weed. We were just lucky enough to happen upon them today. Because Christine and I were in closer to shore, we weren't being attacked as much.
(Not any of my daughters, but you get the idea - pretty gross)
Now that the girls had been gnawed on, they were reluctant to head back out into the water. They'd been looking forward to this for a long time and now, something unseen was destroying the joy of the adventure.
Life is a lot like that. It usually isn't something we can see that reaches up and rips the joy out of something we've been looking forward to; it's almost always something we don't see, something giving us emotional welts. We can handle the heat of the shore - we can run across it, but we can't handle sea lice because we can't see them which means we can't avoid them.
I hope that as you set out on a particularly joyful journey, you enjoy it regardless of the things that threaten to destroy it, whether unseen (attitudes, yours or others) or seen (obstacles of your own making or those that have been placed by others).
The girls got back into the water and swam to their hearts content. They are only bites after all. Plenty of time to recover.
Plenty of time to recover from the beach.
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