Summer Black Ball at Humewood

Summer's here. Which means lifeguards are back on duty and there's plenty peeps paddling and swimming about. It also means the start of the Black Ball season at Humewood. Black Ball? What it means is when the lifey's raise the Black Ball flag, the surfers have to get out the water. So.....

Flag up = no surfing.
No flag = surfing allowed.

Pretty freaking simple ou's, it ain't rocket science. Let's remember that they don't have to actually allow us to surf Hummies at all as there is actually a bylaw that states no surfing there. So it's just through the beach manager being cool and wanting to try accommodate all water users that we get cut some slack and are allowed there provided peeps aren't swimming.

So let's not abuse the privilege. The flag goes up, get out the water. As much of an annoyance as it is. Cos if we don't, chances are they might just boot us for good. Uncool.

Half the time the peeps just paddle in the shallows for a few minutes and then get out, so hang about on the beach for a bit til they bail, then you'll be able to get back in the water again when the lifey's drop the flag.

Much as we might think it sucks to get called out when some Vaalie is paddling about shin deep halfway down the beach, suck it up and go in. Rather surf with some restrictions than no surf at all.

Let's hold thumbs the east's start pushing some sand back against the pylons....

PS. The flags haven't actually arrived yet, so for the moment you're gonna just have to listen to the lifey's - when they start whistling like nuts and waving at you....um, that means get in!

UPDATE: Tony came up with a good idea, and I spoke to the beach manager about it - know when they put up the flag they're going to give a short blast on the siren too - so when you hear that you know it's time to get out. Tony rightly pointed out that half the time they could be whistling at bathers etc, and then we aren't always watching the beach all the time to notice the flag going up either.