I mentioned in February that AANR had cancelled the 2011 world record Skinnydip. I felt that it was a great promotional tool to promote nudism. Anyways, they cancelled it but the Wreck Beach Preservation Society (WBPS) decided to go ahead and attempt to break their own record skinny dip.I think that record was 389 from 2010. I can't find the figure for 2009 so if anyone knows the Wreck Beach number for 2009, it would be great if you posted in the comments.
I intended to catch the 7am ferry from Victoria to Vancouver (Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen). I ended up sleeping in and I only caught the 9am ferry. Travel time from Where I live in Victoria, to Wreck beach is probably 4-5 hours. I'll break down the distance I traveled because I want to get across what a wonderfully committed nudist I really am!
by car:Victoria to Swartz Bay: 40 minutes
by BC Ferries:Schwartz Bay to Tsawwassen: 100 minutes
by Translink Bus - #620:Tsawwassen to Canada Line - Bridgeport Station: 35 minutes
by Canada Line - Bridgeport Station to Broadway - City Hall Station: 12 minutes
By Translink Bus - #99: Broadway - City Hall Station to UBC Bus loop North - 30 minutes
By foot: UBC to Wreck Beach - 20 minutes
So 3.6 hours of actual travel time. Does not include waiting for transfer time. Transfers push this trip well over 4 hours and longer on the return trip. I am committed to the cause!
So I arrived at Wreck Beach Trail 6 at about 12:30. At the top of trail six there is a vendor cart, a two-stall pit bathroom, and a park sign leading to the descending staircase. The staircase is steep, long, and only has a hand rail on one side - for use of people mostly on their way back up. My feet hurt by the time I reached the bottom. The return trip up was worse but I'll mention that later.The walk was worth it. The beach was huge, full of people, and the weather was spectacular. About twenty degrees and sunny!
Near the bottom of the staircase, a drunk and or stoned man was yelling about the skinny dip. He made little sense except to confuse people about the financials of the attempt. His chanting made it sound like there was a 5$ fee to participate. There was no fee at all to participate. There was; however, a generous anonymous donor. The donor had very specific requirements: if between 0 and 999 persons participate, 2$ per person will be donated to the WBPS. However, if 1000 or more persons participate then 5$ per person will be donated. This motivation likely led the drunk man to pontificate but he may have done more harm than good. Confusion was rife among the 1000 plus person crowd.
This was by far the largest crowd of nude persons I had been in. There had been the 40 person turnout for my first Arbutus Park Club swim in January 2009. There was the 100 plus nude persons at the world naked bike rides. Prior Lake can get up to 50 plus nude persons. At Wreck Beach, I was among as many as 1000 nude persons, and then another 1000 people in various states of dress. This was an amazing leap beyond my previous measures of social nudity!
I was desperate to people watch - preferably without gawking. What kind of people came to Wreck Beach? Students? Hippies? The high and the drunk? The hardcore male nudist for sure was out and about. Eclectic mix probably best describes the crowd.
The largest contingent was the single male, over tanned and not particularly young. I know this creature well and he is found at all places where nude is not rude. The student must have been a large factor as well. I have never seen such a large proportion of young individuals at a nude location in Victoria. I saw only a few families with kids around although I was told that there is a 'family' section further up the beach to the north. Similarly I heard of a gay section with 'bushes' to the south.
All bodies types were present as well. The large and the small. Mostly white with many Asians and at least one black person in the form of a vendor. A huge swath of age groups - all decades from 20-60 were well represented. I imagine the 70+ category is kept out due to the exhausting staircase at trail 6. I could not detect any other patterns at all. Truly a large sample that I would have loved to run statistical analysis on. I imagine I would find many cool patterns in the math (and I do have a statistical background) but nothing shouted out from the norm.
There were at least 20 vendors selling everything from beer to some sort of organic rum infused pudding that was actually more like banana bread. Water and juice available and other normal foods were available too.
I did not attempt to enumerate the proportion of women. My best guess is maybe 35-40% women. Of the nudes, the proportion was lower and maybe 25-33%. Most of the women on the beach were in groups of 3 or more. Many were topfree but not nude. Solo women were around but quite rare.
I read, I tanned, I walked around the main section of beach surrounding Trail 6. I did not manage my time well and so I was not able to walk the length of the beach. At 1:45 I began to move towards trail 6 again to see when exactly the skinny dip would take place. I managed to hear Judy Williams mention 2:20pm. This suggested 20 minutes after the advertised time! I was not impressed at all. 2:20 passed and then 2:40 with many "5 minute warnings" being given and then ignored. The first photograph of the skinny dip was taken at around 3pm. "What a joke" crossed my mind several times.
Before I describe the actual record attempt, I will describe my best guess as to why the record attempt was delayed by an entire hour. Greed. Perhaps that is too harsh but it had to be about fundraising. Running the WBPS must have lots of expenses because the leadership was dying to milk the anonymous donor for every dollar they could muster. I forgave them during the actual skinny dip because it was lots of fun to be in a crowd of 630 plus nude and splashing and having a great time.
The skinny dip began with the photographers ladder being taken to the waters edge. This was probably 100 meters from the trail head. Slowly the nudists all filtered out and many group photos were taken while we all stood about knee deep in water. About 20 shots were taken, with many nudes continuing to filter in at a steady pace. After the photos the group began to disperse into either deeper waters or back to the dry beach.
Then Judy Williams (the main organizer) ran to the group. She was panicked! She had been left out of the photos and no official count had been done. Would WBPS get any money at all? Well people called back the group and more photos were taken. Unfortunately several hundred persons had been lost back to the main beach. Even more people were disgusted with the fact that in order to be counted, we had to wait around and exit through a single file. I initially thought they wanted to photograph us one by one! Those of us willing walked through single file and were counted. Approximately 630 of us. I think another 200 or more could have been counted if leadership had been there from the start. Alas!
I bumped into a friend from the APC, Phaethon, and I sat with him for about an hour on the beach until about 4:20 when I decided I better bust my butt to get back to Tsawwassen in time for the 7pm sailing to Victoria. I made an accident or two getting back to the Canada Line but I did somehow get to the ferries in time. I was even able to pick up my parents at the airport in Victoria at 10:30 that evening!
So we broke Wreck Beach's 2010 mark by several hundred. Unfortunately we did not break the world record. I hope there is another attempt next year and I hope some of you will join me.
Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment