... notable events : Wreck beach... of ding-ing dongs and bobbing boobies

Ask anybody in Vancouver about Wreck beach and the response you'll get would range from knowing sniggers to shocked looks of pretentious primness.

We'd of course, all heard about it well before we even left Singapore. How could we not when every returning student and alumni would regale us with tales of the forbidden, each slightly more risque and each increasingly more elaborate than the next? Who wouldn't be curious if you were told that the university you would be going to had a certified nudist beach not 100 metres from where you'll be having classes in an endeavour to broaden our young minds?

So it was with the greatest of expectations that I, a young impressionable undergraduate student from the prudishly victorian societies of Malaysia/Singapore came to Point Grey, Vancouver, the home of Wreck beach. Ironically, as fate would have it, the residence I had chosen to reside in was perched as it is, right on top of one of the major entry trails down to the infamous beach as if to tempt the very soul, and to seek forever the shattering of childhood innocence.

I arrived in late autumn of 1991. Settled into my room on the first floor of my new residence, Cariboo House of Place Vanier, it was time to explore. Together with a new friend I'd met who incidently also hailed from the beautiful tropical emerald country of Malaysia, we had at first resisted the sexy siren's call. We traversed the campus, taking photographs of the Rose Garden, posing by the Statue of Democracy, visiting downtown Vancouver and the famous Stanley Park... but it beckoned us. Like a viral hunger it ate at our resolve, eroding the barriers of our minds, eating away at the rigid moral codes of our upbringing.

... nude...
... women...
... sex...

... the ageless call to every hot-blooded male. Who were we to resist? We are but mere mortal men with mortal failings.

With winter approaching and classes starting to pile up, we decided it was now or never. Donning our jackets against the growing cold, we found ourselves standing at the top of the winding dirt trail which led down the wooded cliff to the beach below. We stumbled apprehensively down the slope, tripping on tree roots and protruding rocks. Apprehensive because of the wild stories of "beach creatures", the inhabitants of Wreck beach at night. "Go if you want to..." older students they told us, but "... always wear shoes, watch where you step and leave before night fall." they warned. Wreck beach... was the exclusive domain of beach creatures where even the much vaunted RCMP dared not tread after dark. Yeah right we both thought. It's just a beach. Ain't it?

The path opened up at the bottom to a scene of chaos. Timber littered the stony beach. I'm not sure what we had expected, beautiful sandy beaches with crystal clear waters perhaps, but not this rocky expanse of broken cliffside beach. We shivered in the biting sea breeze searching for the beautiful naked bodies we were expecting to see... where were they?

We found lots of evidence of people having been here, a punctured beach ball, a torn picnic mat, some unidentifiable article of clothing, cigarette butts, candy wrappers, questionable containers, broken bottles, rusty tincans, broken syringes... but no heavenly bodies. Sigh.

With a heavy heart we turned back. The beach was empty. Nude season was probably over we concluded. The biting cold wind blowing at us from the northwestern sky was probably the reason. This wind came straight from the frigid wastes of the artic and was hardly a conducive environment for a person such as I who was fully clothed, what more a naked one. We'll be back next summer we both agreed and promised.

So that was how our first personal attempt at peeling back the naked secrets of Wreck beach ended that year. The school term really began as the winter set in and we were soon busy in our studies and struggling to cope with a new academic system so different from what we were used to back home. A brief day of hazing by my residence house brought all the frosh, as all first years were called on campus, in a quick run down to the beach while wearing nothing but diapers one cold October day, but I already knew what to expect having already been down to the beach earlier. A quick forced drink of sea water and we were running back up the wooded trail again to the campus proper as part of the hazing ceremony with me puking my guts out later from the non-stop beer, sea water and diapered run. The beach was empty much as my earlier explorations had already revealed.

Time passed with exams, snow, skiing, Christmas holidays, skiing, parties, studies, and did I mention skiing? ... and all manner of interesting things happening on campus. E-week stunts, Lady Godiva parades, Red underwear checks, Centurion drinking matches, Cross-dressed engineering student cheerleaders, International House dance parties, and every other conceivable form of chaos. I would watch my wall vibrate and knock my entire can collection down whenever "oldman fossil" as we called him in the room nextdoor played his electric guitar. I would watch as an assortment of females would enter certain rooms and not emerge for days. I would watch every weekend when whole residences would smell of puke and stale beer. I would watch as people come in at weird hours of the night and intoxicately go bouncing from wall to wall. Sometimes they managed to bounce back to their rooms but more often than not, to spend the night on the corridor floor. We played weird games with those drunks as part of the fun but I also spent on not a few occasions, time to help the Resident Advisors carry drunks back into buildings so that we won't get a frozen dead body in the morning. Sometimes we would have last minute room parties with girls from the other houses, where the bed was the dance floor and the whole room was standing space only with loud music and booze aplenty. Sometimes we would go to the old armouries building to play ball hockey or just do somersault jumps off the 2nd floor onto the gymnast mats below. Sometimes we would spend countless night in a row missing classes with no sleep either playing risk, or sneaking into movies, or stealing into the Arts computer lab to play computer games, but all this study, fun and games passed quickly, and soon spring was in the air. .. and again, soon... oh so very soon... it would be sunbathing season we grinned happily.

Before we had the chance to attempt another descent however, one incident illustrated to us the dangers we would face and emphasized the warning we had heard over and over again about beach creatures. It was late one night and I was in my room, when I heard a commotion outside my door. Footsteps thundered down the hall and there was the sounds of crashing on the walls and doors. I rose from my table from whatever I was doing at the time and stood at the door as the sounds of running feet stormed past my door. Mere moments later, two sets of heavy booted footsteps came pounding past after the first set. Hand hovering over the door handle I deliberated silently. Should I open the door? What's going on? Soon however, the reassuring sounds of some of my floormates chatting loudly in excited voices helped allay my fears and I too stepped out to see what was going on. Following the excited group of fellow students out the rear entrance that was just next to my room, we piled out the door and assembled just outside the building to watch, emerging just in time to see a disheveled man disappear into the undergrowth along the dark path that led down to the beach with two large and burly RCMP officers with their radios and firearms drawn in hot pursuit. Then to our amazement, just as we thought the fugitive would be caught, the two police officers stopped short right at the edge of the trail.

"We've lost him. Repeat, we've lost him. Over. bzzzt bzzt bzzzzzt" one of the officers radioed.

Dumbfounded, we just stood there, eyes and mouths wide open in the cold dark and stared at the two police officers who were just standing around peering down the slope and frantically gesturing. The message hit home. That was how dangerous Wreck Beach was at night that even two armed RCMP police officers would rather let a fugitive escape then to continue pursuit.

It was in this frame of mind that we attempted our third descent into Wreck Beach. We purposely chose a bright and sunny summer day. Exams were just over and it was the start of our summer holidays. So there we were, a little older, a little wiser but not the least less enthusiastic about Wreck Beach. The events of the past semester only serving to heighten the excitement and curiosity.

We trudge down the same windy trail, stepping over roots and protruding rocks. The initial signs were promising as we passed a few scantily dressed people on the way down. Emerging once again at the base of the cliff, the same cluttered beach greeted us but this time... this time, things were slightly different! There were people and lots of them too! Suddenly we both felt extremely self conscious. We exchanged a glance... Nah... I didn't exactly have any particular desire to strip, but more importantly, I definitely didn't want to scar my mind with the sight of him naked... and I sensed the same thoughts going through his head. Ok, fine. We'll go in fully clothed and hope we don't get pelted with rocks.

Gingerly we made our way along the beach, heading to the water's edge, still careful to avoid the scattered dangers on the broken ground. To be honest, that was all we dared to do. Looking anywhere else just seemed... inappropriate. I mean... for real, these people were... NAKED. We walked on, our eyes darting all over the place, trying to see yet trying not to see... screwing our nose in disgust whenever our wandering gaze passed over a particularly disgustingly shriveled sight, sniggering privately when we spotted a group of men and women playing a very bouncy game of volleyball, doing a couple of double-takes whenever we see any reasonably youngish female.... and all the while, feeling SOOOOO out of place in our clothes.... maybe if we pretend like we're looking for a place on the beach to sit and then strip... ugghhh... no, maybe not. I don't want people to think we're like butt buddies. Better to risk looking like nerdy curious students...

.... but for the most part, Wreck Beach was a disappointment. We were expecting beauty of the California Beach variety, and we found... uhhhhh.... less then par. Having walked down to the water's edge, we paused to stare out to sea and stood there lost in our own thoughts, having passed through the thickest part of the nudist camp and not a little relieved that we hadn't been accosted and made to strip.

"Go back?" I asked. "Yeah." came the muffled reply... we were suddenly unwilling to make eye-contact. We took a different path back, not wanting to walk through the mass of wrinkled flesh anymore than we had to. Skirting the edge, we headed back towards the exit trail. Interestingly though, it was while we were walking our circular path that we actually saw stuff that came closer to what we had originally expected in our mind's eye. There were a few couples hidden amongst the larger boulders by the cliffside that were fairly decently proportioned. Large grins began to spread over our faces. Now we're talking! We kept walking, not daring to stop and stare, stealing fleeting glances whenever we could but most of the couples were quite well hidden, and glimpses of rounded rumps, fuzzy hair and fleshy mounds were all we were afforded.

Still grinning like idiots, we soon arrived back at the start of the trail. Halfway up the trail, we couldn't hold it in any longer and we both started laughing and giggling like little boys. It was fun, the experience to us so out-of-this-world that we really had no words for it except to grin and laugh away the mixed feelings of nervousness, excitement, disappointment, happiness, satisfaction and fear. This was our university. We came here for an education... and boy did we get an education. ;)

Wreck Beach.

Point Grey.

Vancouver.

British Columbia.

Canada.