Open Writing

Zenith Beach lies on the surf side of Port Stephens and the tourist guide book ominously warns that it is, “Not the safest beach for kids. Can be a bit rough.”

On the day that we arrived there it was, in my opinion, not at all safe for adults either. The waves, which were being infuriated by a blustering gale, were crescendoing to a scary height and then thumping down on the sand with a powerful KERDOOF, one even spewing a whole tree trunk out at our feet. The only people on this deserted beach were me, my foolhardy husband and our two year old toddler. Everybody else had stayed indoors and this should have been a clue really but my husband is from landlocked Zimbabwe and once he sights the ocean he gravitates towards it with the inevitability of iron filings to a magnet.

So it was that I watched him disappear into the pounding surf, a little peeved at what I perceived to be his stupidity but at the same time most anxious for his safety. What is the point in being married to a woman who has the wisdom of Solomon when one never heeds her advice? He seemed hell bent on being a widow maker so I turned my attention instead to our little boy, making sandcastles for him to keep him amused.

Suddenly a brightly coloured bucket swirled up enticingly close to us. I stood up to retrieve it when our son, who was going through that fiercely independent stage, said, ‘No, me get it!” Suitably chastised, I watched as he toddled over to the bucket and lifted it up. I noticed in horror that it was full of stinging bluebottles - a type of nasty jellyfish. Before I could stop him he had tipped the whole lot over his body and he began to scream in sheer pain. The blue tentacles were wrapped around his chubby, little arms and legs and dribbled menacingly down his baby potbelly leaving angry, painful welts.

Frantically I tried to pull them off him but that only served to spread them faster as they latched on to me too. I yelled to my husband but he could neither see nor hear me. In my panic I knew that I needed to get help and I recalled seeing an army campsite further back, in the bush. Powered by pure adrenalin, I piggybacked my screaming son up the beach, my lungs searing like steaks on a BBQ as I battled against the yielding sand, cursing the vertical, eighty steps which led into the barracks.

I burst past the ‘Do Not Enter’ sign shouting for help. Men came running from everywhere. I knew that we needed vinegar to ease the burning pain but there were no such condiments to be found in the boot camp kitchen so two sergeants raced out of the camp in a jeep. They returned moments later with the sole bottle from the nearby fish and chip shop. They attended to my little fellow, calmed him down, wrapped in a towel and gave him a lollipop to suck on as a distraction. I, clad only in a bathing suit, had also ceased to feel pain and was being distracted by a young corporal dabbing vinegar on my arms, a hunky officer washing my legs and the captain, no less, giving me an acetic bath on my back and neck.

After a good twenty minutes my restrictive bundle of responsibility piped up, “Where’s my daddy?” Reluctantly I gave the command and dispatched a soldier to inform my husband of his wife’s whereabouts and predicament.