The sand, sea and stinger.....

13 Jan 2007 - Maiden swim of 2007!

Summer's here and it's a waster if we don't follow the crowds to frolic at the beach and expose ourselves to the elements (sunburns, sandflies and other hazards... what were you thinking?!)

After my badminton session at UQ and Esmond's half day work at Garden City, we set off for the golden strip half and hour down south in 1 car (5 grown adults squeezed into 1 Mazda Astina).

When we arrived, we diligently "slipped, slopped and slapped" on copius amount of sunscreen to avoid the "ow, ow, ouch" of peeling skin under the relentless sun. We even went contrary to the locals and "hid" in the shadow of a building (sheltered from direct sunlight)!

The guys warmed up with a game of frisbee.

Took a breather, then set off bravely to confront the waves with their body boards.

Kudos goes to Heng On for body-boarding even though he doesn't know how to swim!

We girls decided to stay dry....

Suddenly, we heard an "ouch!" and saw Roger sitting on the sand grabbing onto his ankle. Something had bitten him and it was very painful. We looked around and saw nothing suspicious but the pain was intensifying by the minute. A kind man and his son came over to check if everything was alright. He said that it's likely the "Blue Bottle Jellyfish" that was the culprit, it's not life threatening (just very annoying), and the lifeguards will have something to ease the pain.

The aggressor - Blue Bottle jellyfish....

So we trudged forward some 500m (coz we were swimming away from the flags to avoid the crowds) in seach of the "cure" - a bag of ice.

Then we also found that the lifeguards had put up warning signs that there are "marine stingers" about and that swimmers are to keep at their own depth (whatever that means....)

Being stung sucks and certainly put a damper on swimming in the sea.

So we trudged back to our bags with the body boards in tow (literally...)

Stopping once in a while to let the "victim" nurse his wound.

When we got back, Esmond decided that he wanted to try out the "whites" age old liking of being buried in the sand. And the rest of the gang gamely acceded to his request. They even went as far as giving Esmond the "perfect" body (equipped with six packs and all....)

When they've got enough of the "body building" they reverted back to frisbee throwing until.....the frisbee flew too far out and dove into the sea....

The victim boldly trudged into the water again to seach for the missing disc... (all the while praying that he won't be "second time lucky"....

Despite the "search party's" effort in combing the area, the lost frisbee was never to be found... (maybe King Triton saw that the game was so fun, that he decided to keep it so that he could throw a few disc at King Neptune! haha...)

We packed up and left for dinner at a Thai restaurant opposite Jupiter Conrad Casino. They have very good business and the food was very very delicious.... (we cleared all our plates.... most of them cleared by Esmond....)

We had some bubblies to go along with our dinner...

After dinner, the guys were feeling lucky so we took the monorail to go across to the casino.

But alas, it was not to be, as we were in our shorts and thongs.... (i.e. not appropriately dressed for the now newly renovated casino....)

With nothing else to explore, we headed back to Brisbane and ended our half day trip to the Gold Coast.