Bells Beach is Victoria's most famous surfing beach and one of the world's great surfing breaks. The excellent break is due to a combination of clean waves, that have refracted around the Otways, and particularly a gently sloping limestone reef off the southern point that produces one of the world's best right-handers. It can handle anything from 1.5 up to 7 m.
Surf Life Savings’ ‘Australians for Life’ website gives Bells a hazard rating of 6 on a scale of 1-10 … that is “Moderately hazardous”. Manly (N Steyne) and Surfer’s Paradise are also rated 6/10. These rating refer to the beach and surf conditions – not potentially dangerous marine life!
In comparison, Ocean Beach rates 8, “Highly hazardous” – along with Anvil Beach and Ratcliffe Bay. Back Beach (rating 9) is considered “Extremely hazardous”. Peaceful Bay is rated 3 i.e. “Least hazardous”.
Denmark residents are extremely fortunate to have such a dynamic Surf Life Saving Club patrolling the township’s closest beach at peak times. However, the lifeguards are volunteers and the beach cannot be patrolled all the time. Residents who believe that Denmark doesn’t need a swimming pool because it has the ocean might pause to think of the safety angle.
What counts as moderately or highly hazardous for a healthy teenager does not apply across the spectrum of ages. Almost any water space is hazardous to a toddler, but even for life-long swimmers the personal hazard rating goes up as the body ages. Some senior swimmers become noticeably tentative in even quite mild surf. Waves that once would have thrilled may now spill; bodies that once bent with ease are now more likely to be less flexible and more prone to nasty tumbles.
Tolerance to cold winds also seems to decrease with age. For all but the hardiest, young and old, the season for ocean swimming is short.
Yet, paradoxically, the health benefits of swimming are even more relevant when ageing bones become brittle. High impact and weight bearing exercises become less attractive … and our bodies naturally shy away from them. Aquatic exercise … and particularly regular aquatic workouts – become increasingly important.
And the importance of early childhood development of water skills cannot be overstated.
This is why DACCI believes it’s worth the agonisingly long drawn-out battle to see that Denmark has its own year-round heated indoor swimming pool. If we want a safe and healthy community it’s a price worth paying.
It seems like a no-brainer to us!
Shall we .. or shall we not?
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