Matters acquatic

On the surface of it, this is a procrastination posting: I'm swamped with exam marking right now, and putting it off to deal with something more pleasant (though itself long postponed) might seem a touch feckless; typical, perhaps, but not canny. Still, it's 11.20pm at night, and I've just marked a script in which a student, asked to identify the name by which Beethoven's Sixth Symphony is better known, answered 'the Erotica', so a break is definitely called for before my soul shrivels up entirely. In any case, I've finished all the scripts I took home with me (the result of a choir rehearsal ending surprisingly early), so my conscience is clear.

Anyway, to business(?). I was talking with a long-lost friend recently who was visiting Sydney for the first time, and I remember myself saying that one of the glories of Sydney are its beaches. And it's true (even Melbourne-ites admit this) - denizens of this city are probably uniquely favoured in Australia, maybe even the world in terms of the quality and accessibility of the beaches. I've visited quite a few in the months I've been here, although am genetically unsuited to sunbathing, so they've tended to be brief visits. What follows are my impressions, eroded by time in most cases, but still hopefully will serve to inspire countless visits from my Northern hemisphere readers.

First in fame would have to be Bondi. Who hasn't seen images of this golden strand, strewn with bronzed bodies in their thousands? Well, me, for one; at least, not since I've been here. I've taken two trips out to Bondi, the first by bus on my reconaissance trip last summer, I beg your pardon, *winter* (June), and another as part of a long run in February. Both days were uncharacteristically grey with the threat of rain the first time, and a fulfilment of the threat second time round. So the only folk out were the hardiest of surfers, in full body suits, and self walking (or second time, jogging) down the famous path from Bondi along the coast through Bronte, Clovelly, Tamarama (known as 'Glamourama' to some locals because of the proportion of beautiful people living there) as far as Coogee, passing some marginally less crazy walkers on the way. On both occasions, I had a delightful swim in the sea bath (walled off area of beach) at Coogee.

Manly is another well-known spot: I've visited once (it's a 30 minute ferry ride from Circular Quay), but spent most of the time in a less well-known nearby beach called Fairlight. That was my first sea swim after moving here, and one of the most treasured - the water was incredibly warm (by Irish standards), but still cooling in comparison with the inferno-like air temperatures. Having visited the GBR (work it out) during a trip to Queensland, I was familiar with the fact that you'd see lots of fish when swimming in these waters, and this was borne out here, if less spectacularly than on the reef. A second swim on Manly was nearly as nice, but what makes it great for surfers (i.e. the waves) make it fractionally less convenient for swimming. Not that I'm such a technical perfectionist/stamina-freak that a little spray or swell makes much difference to me - I move through the water with the ponderous grace of a semi-submerged and still anchored canoe - but apparently one has to be careful of 'rips', beastly currenty things that take one miles out to see at no warning at all.

Where else? Well, I had a jolly pleasant day swimming at two locations near Vaucluse (on the South head, near the mouth of the harbour), and another delightful double swim at the majestically named Balmoral. My single visit to this last place happened some Sunday about a couple of months back, and I learned that it was on the same day that they actually closed Bondi for a few hours because of Tsunami warning. The Balmoral lifeguards showed a far more robust attitude to the patrons' safety by omitting any mention of it. OK, the beach isn't on the coast, but given that the Tsunami was caused by some rift on the other side of the planet, an extra five miles or so doesn't seem to put us entirely outside its sphere of influence. My other mild complaint about this otherwise delectable spot is the road getting to it, or rather, getting away from it: a ferocious and prolonged ascent to get back to the main road which strained chest and quads to their ragged limits. Still, at least I didn't have to get off the bike - I'm still of an age where it's much better to fall off it with angina than take sensible precautions.

At some point during the semester (the weeks and months have fused together into a vague miasma of lecture prepation punctured by infrequent intervals when I was doing SOMETHING ELSE) I went with some friends on a dolphin cruise. Now, in my imagination, I saw myself swimming in the water beside some friendly, trained-to-a-hair acrobat of an animal, who would take time out from jumping through hoops to allow me to recreate the climactic whale-rider scene. (I'm a reasonable man - even in my dreams, I'm willing to scale down a whale to a measly dolphin.) Blame it on being brought up in Ireland in the late 1980s-early 1990s - we had a single, sociopathic, attention-whore of a dolphin called Fungie (I jest not), who haunted the Dingle (SW Ireland) coasts for what must have been more than a decade.

As a result, it's hardly surprising that the dolphin expedition didn't come up to my expectations. The gang up at Port Stephen justified the reputation of the species for intelligence by largely avoiding us: assiduous hunting only ever produced a couple of dark tail fins before they'd sumberge again. We did get to venture into the water - by sliding down a chute into a net at the back of the boat, and thus, lying in about a foot of water with knotted rope digging into one's back, I and various other masochists were towed behind the boat for a while. Still, a fun day out, which ended with a proper swim in the vicinity. Actually, while surging through the waves like..., well, you now can imagine what I was like, I spotted another of this land's sweet creatures - a Stingray, about 4 feet from me. Not having a Steve Irwin penchent for messing which such animals, I calmly left her go her own way, and I went mine, which happend to be in a direction 180 degrees from hers.


One final matter to mention under this heading: rain. Having enjoyed/endured three months of warmth at the beginning of my stay, it's turned a lot cooler and more changeable in the last few weeks. I've lost count of the number of people who have said cheerily to me 'Oh, you must be feeling quite at home now' as the rain spattered down next to the awning under which we are sheltering. Well, no, actually. In Ireland it only *seems* to rain all the time. Moreover, it's a different sort of rain. Perhaps a more exasperating, constant gentle drizzle, like those people who keep up a mild complaining commentary on life, the universe and everything. Here, it's more like a manic depressive, who rages violently, ceases abruptly, and then displays its charming face. There have been almighty deluges, but on most occasions, I've been able to dodge the showers. Moreover, the idea that I greet the cold and wet with the fondness of the exile who has been sorely missing these things is wide of the mark. Despite any grousing I may have been guilty of over humidity, it's easier on the whole to handle. I'm acclimatising, and not just literally. Last year, on my interview trip, I boldly took a dip in Coogee at the beginning of June - the lady at the guesthouse thought I was nuts, but I braved the rain, and found the water and air temperature highly acceptable. This year, *I* think I was nuts. My airy boasts that I'd swim throughout the year have rung hollow. It makes me wonder - can I ever face the Irish waters again? I expect I'll find out... in about 2 weeks' time.