a day of Manliness

There is a magical beach in Sydney, Australia known as Manly Beach. (We thought of Precious Manly an infinite amount of times today...)

Walt, Jeanne and I traveled by ferry across the Sydney Harbour to Manly Beach today.

Upon arrival, we stepped off of the ferry and found ourselves surrounded by all-things Manly. Everywhere we looked we saw signs for Manly Paradise Hotel, Manly Italian Restaurant, Manly Souvenir Gift Shop, Manly Bank. This main drag of Manliness guided our footsteps to the shores of Manly Beach, a stretch of white sand and surf, lined by fir trees and rocks that dwarfed Bondi Beach in size.

Even more glorious and manly was the actual men on the beach. We wondered if this Manly Beach would live up to its name.

And it did.

Oh indeed, it did.

Jeanne and I came up with nicknames for each hot man we saw today, and we shall chronicle our sightings for you as follows:

The first sighting of the day was Colorado.

Oh, Colorado.

Our encounter with Colorado began as a debate with Walt as to how high the surfing waves were. Unfortunately, the intensity of the swells today prevented the casual beachgoer from swimming in the shark-infested waters of Manly Beach. As a result, the only people allowed in the surf were actual surfers. Manly surfers.

I first noticed Colorado as he sat on his surfing board, facing the water, although I didn't really pay that much attention to him. Walt, Jeanne and I began to debate the height of the waves. Walt guessed 5-6 feet, while I conjectured 7-8 feet. Jeanne settled around 5 to 6. Jeanne decided to ask this man sitting on the surf board to settle the debate. She strode on over to Colorado and engaged him in conversation. Walt and I stood from a distance. Walt commented, "That man's dreams just came true."

After about 15 minutes of conversation, Jeanne returned to where we were camped on the beach and explained to us that the waves were 2 meters (or 6 feet tall), valuable intel gleaned from her conversation with this bloke from Colorado. Hence the name Colorado. His actual name was Josh, but that is not important to this story.

Colorado later informed us of the joys of the Australian agricultural industry and Jeanne and I immediately to hatch plans to harvest cabbage at some point.

The second sighting of the day occurred when Jeanne and I were coming back from the public restrooms located by the street. She had nudged me and said the standard something-along-the-lines of "Whoa, check out that hot guy."

"Where?" I didn't see where she was pointing. A moment passes. I saw.

"Ohhhhhh."

We later described him as a cross between David Beckham, Sawyer from LOST and a young Sean Penn from Fast Times from Ridgemont High. It was all about the long blonde hair pulled back by a ponytail. And the shades.

He and his friends started doing a lot of crunches on the sand. So we dubbed him "Crunch," a.k.a. "Captain Crunch."

Captain Crunch sure looked great playing volleyball.

And walking. And running.

Those were the main highlights of our afternoon. We also dubbed one guy Spot, due to the spot of sunscreen he failed to spread evenly on his back. Jeanne kept daring me (in her typical"Do it, do it, do it" fashion) to go help him rub that sunscreen in. The poor guy just left his blanket with this white splotch on his back. He disappeared for an hour and returned with his buddy. I thought, "Surely his friend would tell him about the sunscreen on his back." No dice. I dubbed his friend "Judas," since he failed to do his friend a solid and inform him that he looked ridiculous.

We also saw Zebra, a guy with black and white striped pants. He was too far away to tell of his Manliness, but he did do a funny little dance whilst playing volleyball.

Anyway, we--(we meaning at least Jeanne and I)--came away from our Manly Beach experience totally satisfied.

We ended the evening with drinks at the Old Manly Boathouse, and an amazing ferry boat ride back to Sydney. As the sunset faded into night, we passed the edge of the earth, with Manly Beach to our backs, and a front row seat to the brilliant vista of the Sydney nighttime skyline, Opera House and Harbour Bridge included.

It's been a good day.