Manly and Shelly Beaches

On Sunday afternoon we took a ferry to Manly which is across the harbor and northeast of the city center. Here's the beach. Those little dots in the waves are surfers. It's almost impossible to get a picture of the beach without surfers in it. But we're not sure why you'd want to anyway -- the surfers are extraordinarily fun to watch.

Here's a better view.

As you can see, the area along the beach

is very built up and touristy.

Here's Rick and Sylvia on a walkway overlooking Manly Beach that leads to yet another beach, Shelly Beach.

This is along the same walkway, but a little further east, 

in the early 1900's. What differences to you notice about the coastline?                                                  

                                                                             In 1902 Manly became the first beach in Australia where "daylight bathing" was legal. About five years later, surf patrols (or life guards) began patrolling the beach in boats. The people in this photo are watching a surf carnival which had lifesaving demonstrations. The carnival raised money for the surf patrols and attracted thousands of spectators.

Shelly Beach is aptly named:

This is what the "sand" looks like at the edges of Shelly Beach. At the center of the beach, shells are mixed with a very rough sand. Sylvia and I could spend hours looking at these shell bits. Quite a bit of sea glass was mixed in. (If you look at the right edge of the photo, you can see part of a piece of pale blue sea glass).

We then walked back to Manly beach. See how different the sand is there?

And before we raced to the ferry, we had a simple, delicious dinner at The Fish Shack. (On the way home, we joked about all the work that went into coming up with that memorable name. What would you name a restaurant that serves fish and seafood?). This photo makes me think about the limits of photography (or at least my photography). You can't really see the beach which is in the background. You can't hear the waves or the parrots that are flying from tree to tree. You can't feel the wind or tasty the salty tang of the air. You don't get to see the passers-by or the cars (or hear the fire truck screaming by), but at least you get a hint of our happiness before our wild ferry ride home (which is a whole other story!).