By Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh
We like this unusual take on the idea of sandcastles.
What does it suggest to you?
Here is a good place for a call to action.
by Guest Author
We like this unusual take on the idea of sandcastles.
What does it suggest to you?
by Guest Author
Each day we have a choice to keep moving forward by putting one foot in front of the other until we reach our desired destination.
Not always easy!
What do you do to keep moving forward?
by Guest Author
Some creative process went into the making of this.
by Guest Author
This is a sand spire we found at the beach, you make it by dripping wet sand steadily from one’s fingertips, so the spire builds up.
A spire reaches for the sky. When we cultivate our aspirations we are reaching upward or beyond. We aspire to be better, to achieve more.
Aspirations are usually achieved by patient steady application, like the building of a sand spire.
What will you aspire to today in your life and business?
by Guest Author
By Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh
At this time of the year, this vignette of trucks, boats and fishermen is a regular, sometimes daily sight on our local beaches. They are waiting for schools of mullet. Sometimes they will be waiting there literally for days on end.
Now mullet in these parts is not a highly regarded fish, and many Australians would never order mullet in preference to other fish such as bream or snapper. So it is usually sold at a significantly lower price.
So for a long time we wondered about the economics of all this waiting by the fisherman, not to mention the sunk investment in trucks and boats.
Then we found that the gold is in the mullet roe, apparently a prized – and expensive – delicacy in Japan and Taiwan, and maybe elsewhere.
Sometimes real value is not obvious.
Sometimes we have to wait for the bearers of value to appear.
Authors’ Bios: Suzie Cheel is the Heart Whisperer at Suzie Cheel You can find Suzie on Facebook and on Twitter as @suziecheel. She also shares her inspiring Beach Notes here on Sundays.
Des Walsh is a Digital Disruption Navigator at Des Walsh Dot Com You can find Des at LinkedIn and on Twitter as @deswalsh
by Guest Author
By Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh
These oars are part of a great Australian story of the volunteer lifeguards (we call them lifesavers) who patrol surfing beaches around Australia every weekend in summer.
The oars are for the open boats that were traditionally used for rescues that were too hard for an individual lifesaver to get to. In today’s inflatable boats with outboard engines and jet skis world, the boats are no longer used as part of the rescue apparatus, but happily the tradition lives on with clubs maintaining boats and crews and competing in the “surf carnivals” held around the country through summer.
Probably because the boats are not part of the basic rescue setup these days, they all need sponsorship to be bought and maintained. Typically, that seems to be by local businesses.
It’s a thrill to see one or more of these boats, each with a crew of 5-7, two or three each side and the “sweep” steering from the stern, breaching the surf, sometimes elevated at such an angle you wonder if they are going to tip over and be swamped – and that does happen.
Until fairly recently crews were all male – as were the lifesaver patrols in earlier years – and the boat crews were traditionally pretty tough. In recent years there has been a big uptake of surf boat racing by women crews.
One joke about the selection of crews in older days was that contenders would line up and others would throw house bricks at them: the ones who didn’t duck were selected.
In the photo here you’ll see that in the daredevil tradition of surf boat racing the crew are not wearing any special safety protection such as inflatable vests or helmets.
Men or women crews – seriously tough, seriously fearless, seriously dedicated. All volunteers devoting their weekends to saving lives. Inspirational? We think so.
More about the boats here. And about the Australian Surf Life Saving Association here.
Image credit: Alexandra Headland Colts Manipulate Shore Break in a surf carnival: by DonJeffFranky, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Authors’ Bios: Suzie Cheel is the Heart Whisperer at Suzie Cheel You can find Suzie on Facebook and on Twitter as @suziecheel. She also shares her inspiring Beach Notes here on Sundays.
Des Walsh is a Digital Disruption Navigator at Des Walsh Dot Com You can find Des at LinkedIn and on Twitter as @deswalsh