Of Beach Cult-cha

So, I'm overdue for a post, but, what are you going to do? I mean, I have a brutally heavy workload to deal with here. Mostly at Australian beaches.

After arriving here a few weeks ago, we had a couple of days of nuts and bolts about the program here in Pymble, then we headed a couple of hours south of Sydney to Gerroa where the Australian Jesuits have a house on the beach. No, you are thinking, right now 'this is the Jesuits, they have a house ridiculously close to the beach' you are wrong. They have a house ON the beach. It was built, originally, waaay back right after the Second World War, when there was no real Gerroa, and the place has grown up around the Jesuit house, which today, through arcane and ancient agreements, is the only house on the beach. And will likely remain so. The purpose of our excursion was so that we could tell our stories about who we are and where we were all coming from. 'Getting to know you' in some language, 'Team Building,' in another language.

Which means I should probably say something about my fellow crewman on the SS Tertiana. We are 13 Jesuits from 7 countries plus our Australian Tertian Director (think: spiritual Captain Stubing) and his assistant (who is more 'Doc' than Gopher). All are good guys, in my opinion. At least no one set off my personal warning buzzers, set to detect the slightest vibrations generated by Weirdness fields. Country-wise we hail from: the US of A, Korea, Canada, Germany, Poland, Italy and Switzerland. A fascinating melange of cultures and ideas, I can assure you. Dinner and discussions after are never dull, believe you to me!

So we would get up in the morning, do a little story telling until about noon, then knock off for a day on the beach...which meant swimming, body-surfing, beach combing, praying, etc. etc. Until the evening meal, then we'd watch a video or TV or what ever. It was definitely Relax Mode time. And it was great. I cooked one evening and made a 4th of July kind of picnic dinner with grilled sausages, potato salad, baked 'cowboy' beans (my mother's secret recipe), a green salad and an ice cream dessert that is laden with Oreo cookies, chocolate fudge sauce, peanuts and vanilla ice cream...it is delectable. Following cooking that night my gut and I were photographed entering the water for a sunset swim, the time when the sharks like to feed best.

From Aussie Beach Pix

The sunsets, you see, are spectacular and, it is my opinion, that they are best viewed from in the water. Those with expensive photo equipment though, may wish to stay on dry land and capture incredible images like this:

From Aussie Beach Pix

After a week of this torture, we returned to Sydney this week, where I discovered that there is a beach house for our use about 20 minutes north of where I am, a place called Newport. I have visited there 3 times since last Friday. I think it only right and just to make the most of the experiences that are placed before me, and, in my opinion, it would be criminal not to use a facility like this. I have done a whole bunch of body surfing and desperately trying to figure out how to get my hands on an used surfboard so that I may continue to relearn old, corroded skills.

All of this brings us back to the original title of the post. I am amazed at the Australian beach culture and how pervasive it is in the Australian psyche, especially water recreation. Surfing here, unlike the States, is not a niche sport, it is something kids just grow up doing. The way American kids would play backyard football/baseball/fill in the sport, Aussie kids get a bunch of mates, grab their wetsuits (I haven't yet figure out why you need one, but my water temperature gauge may be permanently scarred by NW water temps), their boards and hit the beach. When such a large percentage of the population lives so close to the beach, well, things are going to get sandy and fun in a hurry. It's awesome... I am loving it so far. It's healthy and fun (outside of the SPF 30+ that I slather on because of the hole in the O-zone down here) and the people on the beach are pretty much Everyman. It's awesome. A place where the Boardless Man isn't trying to hold the Surfer Man down.

And because I know some of you will not be happy until I publish it, here is a shot of the Sydney Opera House and the Harbor Bridge at night. The views are from the old community rec room at St. Aloysius College in downtown Sydney. You know I only post these things to stoke the fires of envy, don't you?

From Aussie Beach Pix

From Aussie Beach Pix