On a typical December day at the famous Bondi Beach in Sydney, surfers compete to catch a wave, fitness junkies to work out, sun worshippers and swimmers enjoy the Austral summer, and families and tourist groups take countless photographs. But beware those used to the relatively tranquil waters of the Mediterranean: lifeguards are a very necessary presence on Bondi Beach. Since the city’s first lifesaving club was established here in 1907, a team of around fifteen volunteers has been tasked with protecting bathers and surfers from the notoriously wild waters and rip currents. The club is also a place for community, where people come to learn new skills and socialise. Speak Up met with Pep Font, a biomedical scientist from Barcelona, who moved to Australia to work at the University of Sydney. Font is also deputy president of the Bondi Surf Club. We began by asking him what makes this beach so special.
Pep Font (Spanish accent): I think the location is what makes this place so good and so famous because we are only twenty minutes from the city. And the space that we have, the shape of the beach that allows for a lot of different activities to happen all the time. So I would say it’s the location and the space that we have.
MORE THAN SURFING
Although surfing is one of its main attractions, there is a wide range of activities to enjoy in the area.
Pep Font: You can do a lot of things in [on] Bondi Beach. You can come down and go for a swim. You can surf, you can run along the beach, you can use any sort of craft to go in the water, anything related with the water. You can sunbathe, you can socialise. There’s [are] a lot of coffee shops; there’s [are] a lot of pubs that you can go. There’s a beautiful swimming pool at the south end of Bondi, Icebergs, which you can go and enjoy for a swim. There’s [are] a lot of things that you can do here.
WILD WATERS
The waters around Bondi Beach can be dangerous. A few elderly people in the city still remember Black Sunday in 1938, when three giant waves hit Bondi Beach and swept hundreds of people out to sea. Miraculously, only five people died, while volunteers and swimmers tied ropes around their waists to save more than two hundred others. As Font explained, it is important to follow the rules.
Pep Font: It is a really dangerous beach. The ocean can get really, really wild. We have waves that can get really really big, more than ten, fifteen-foot waves [3 to 4.5 meters]. You have to be really aware of your skills and you have to be aware of how dangerous the ocean is. You always need to respect the ocean and follow the rules. If you come for a swim, you have to swim between the flags, and if you come for surf, you have to surf in the allocated areas for surfing. If you follow the rules and you listen to the lifeguards and the lifesavers, you’ll be safe in here.
rare SHARK ATTACKS
Contrary to what the media portrays, Australia’s beaches are not infested with sharks. Bondi Beach is, in fact, well protected from predators: every day, during bathing hours, the coast is patrolled by helicopters looking out for sharks and alerting lifeguards if they spot one. Not only is it rare for a swimmer or surfer to encounter one, it is also very unusual for a shark to attack a human being so near to the shore; if it ever does happen, it’s because the shark mistakes the surfboard for a seal or another sea mammal.
REASONS FOR RESCUE
With 36,735 kilometres of coastline and more than ten thousand beaches, Australia requires some three hundred rescue clubs and more than 160,000 active lifeguards to keep bathers safe. While lesser-known threats, such as the deadly box jellyfish, live in the warmer waters of northern Australia, Font says that at Bondi it is the water itself and its proximity to the Pacific Ocean that can catch out swimmers and even seasoned fishermen.
Pep Font: There’s [are] a lot of rescues going on. There is [are] a lot of things happening every day. Normally, during patrolling hours the rescues we got [have to carry out], we just pull people out of the water that might be drowning. My team has been involved in a couple of CPR situations where people just lost consciousness and we have [had] to practise CPR, and luckily enough these [those] people left the beach alive. But the most difficult rescues happen outside patrolling hours, where fishermen can get stuck in the rocks or boats can just crash along [into] the cliffs or something like this [that] and then we send the jet skis to rescue them.