Manly (and I'm not only talking about Marc!)

This past Saturday we made the token excursion to Manly Beach. It is a very popular swimming and surfing beach in the city, and beginning this weekend there is a bus that goes from a mall not too far from here at 9 am, all the way to the beach, and back at 3:30 pm. Being just over an hours drive, that gave us 5 hours to spend at the beach. Just enough. So we woke up bright and snarly Saturday morning, and Cathleen dropped us off at the mall so we could catch the bus. No problem! And we ended up being the only ones on the bus! Upon arrival to Manly, we asked the bus driver what he got up to for the time until we left, and he just gets to sit on the beach too! Lucky man who gets that route. Anyhow, as we got off the bus, he mentioned that if we wanted to go earlier than 3:30, we could just arrange to meet whenever we wanted because there were no other passengers to take back, or we could just meet at 3:30. Sounded mighty fine to us, we wanted to stay as long as possible, so we said we'd just meet at the afore mentioned time. He said he wouldn't leave without us, so off we went.

Marc rented himself a surfboard and wet suit for the day, and I set up the little sun tent on the beach, and got settled in with Jeremiah. Although I'm sure the locals thought we were totally off our rockers for having a little tent set up on the beach, we would have been lobsters by the end of the day without it. It was wonderful when it came time for Jam to have a nap, I just hollowed out the sand a bit and put a blanket down.

Marc had a great time surfing, and by the time he had to take the board and suit back, he was standing on the board, riding the waves! I'm not sure if I got a shot of him doing it though... I got a video, but you'll have to see it on facebook because uploading it onto the blog takes eons.

Here are a few more pictures of the day.

This is called a Blue Bottle jellyfish. Well, this one's dead, but apparently they sting, and are generally not very friendly, but not deadly. Thankfully we only saw them dead on the beach.

Surfer Dude!

I stood him on the sand until a wave came along, and he promptly lifted up his feet and started crying as soon as the water reached his feet. It was quite cute.

Awwwww.

We packed up all of our paraphernalia to head for the bus but realized as we passed the washrooms that we were both rather desperate and would be emmensly uncomfortable for the hour ride home if we didn't stop. So we did. But subsequently we were 5 minutes late for the bus. "No problem" you're thinking, "the bus driver said he wouldn't leave without them!" NOT. Either that, or he was over half an hour late, and arrived after we gave up. We'll never know. This is not such a big deal, because there is a ferry that goes across the bay to downtown then a bus from downtown to right outside the house, but we had purchased return bus tickets and therefore lost $15 to the bus system that we will never get back. We tried to use those tickets to get home from downtown, but the routes are ran by two different bus companies and they wouldn't let us. Oh well, I suppose we got a nice ferry ride out of it all.

When we got home, Cathleen and Richard's friends Graham and Cass were over for supper and the evening. We had a lovely time chatting, and generally having other adults around. We spent most of the evening (after the kiddies were in bed) playing a board game called Robo Rally, which is a lot of fun, quite silly, and overall reduced us to being a bunch of kids anyhow. It was delightful! If the game was still in print, I'd probably go out and buy it. But they don't make them anymore, which is very sad.

Anyhow, that was Saturday. I'm working on a post about our trip to the Blue Mountains, but it's getting rather late, and I'm exhausted. Check back in a day or two to hear all about it!