Image by bondiben.
On February 7, 2005 I left Canada and returned to Australia for the first time since December 6, 2001. Despite my sadness at leaving Tara, coming home to Australia was marvellous in so many ways. For a start it was a hot summer in a way that I hadn’t experienced since leaving. The light was different to Europe and North America. Things smelt different. The trees and flowers and birds and cars and shops and advertising were all different. Different but familiar.
I caught up with friends and family which was great. Time can pass so smoothly.
And I almost died. Kinda.
I was visiting my friend Mel in Bondi and I wanted to go swimming. I hadn’t been in a proper warm ocean with proper big waves since I’d left and I was gagging for a splash. Mel dutifully pointed out the rips as we approached the beach. I listened carefully but also didn’t think too much of it. I knew rips. I’m Australian. I grew up on the beach.
After gracefully stripping to my black undies and bra (I was that desperate) I ran into the ocean. And straight into the rip. Exactly where Mel had told me not to go. I didn’t realise and thought nothing of it. I was in heaven. I was finding it surprisingly easy to get out into the deeper water (really Jen?) and the combination of warm sun, cool water and huge waves was magic.
Then I heard a voice on a megaphone saying something about this being a surf craft zone only, blah, blah, extremely dangerous, blah, blah, very strong swimmers only, blah blah. I looked around and realised he was talking to me. Gulp. I still felt fine. Then I tried to swim straight in to shore and the rip was having none of that.
Her gentle carress weren’t taking me further out, but I was slowly getting tired. I wasn’t panicking and if it had come down to it I feel confident that I would have remembered what I really did know and swum across the rip till I was out of it.
But I could see that the lifesaver was taking off his shirt and coming out to me. He initially advised me to swim ‘over there’, but then thought it’d just be better to bring me in. So I pulled myself onto his board and with my tag hanging out of my undies and giving the attractive young man an excellent view of my butt crack we surfed into shore. He dropped me off in the shallows and I continued to play in the half metre waves for another ten minutes to see if they could wash away some of my humiliation.
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