Over the last week in Devon, I've gone surfer blonde (I'm considering bleaching it to complete the Warhol effect: thoughts?) and bought my first wetsuit. As a fan of funny clothes with tricky fastenings, I can't tell you how much I like it. It's even better than my first fencing jacket.
I bought mine - the wetsuit, that is - from a marine shop in Kingsbridge where they lower a sail into the window of the boat showroom to act as a cubicle. I peeled myself in and out of rubber corsets in this tiny swaying tent, completely unable to believe they should actually be that tight. "They should be", said the male teenage assistant who leant in to zip me up, exposing me to passing yacht-fanciers. "In fact I think you should get one even tighter." I tried a boy's suit on by mistake and found out how, interestingly, men really are different before buying a version that hit above the knee and whose rubber breastplate compressed my bosom into a squarish mono-mamo. It made me feel completely heroic and just a bit like Xena Warrior Princess.
This lasted for a couple of minutes. Wearing a wetsuit on shore soon had me feeling like a boil-in-the-bag turkey but the effect in the sea was extraordinary. Having bought the knee-length version I still experienced the wash over my toes so freezing I could feel every bone in my feet; the same icy slash of surf against the shins, the knees... but, wading a little deeper, I waited for the killer frozen crash to the crotch and... IT JUST DIDN'T HAPPEN. This is a beach revolution.
The beach is divided in two: swimmers with wetsuits can stay in the sea for about an hour (this is the UK, folks) and swimmers without, about 50 seconds.
TAGS: BANTHAM, BIGBURY BAY, DEVON, SAINT IVES, CORNWALL, 1950S RETRO BIKINI, PING-PONG, BEACH TENNIS, HILLS, CARROTS
I remember having to don a wetsuit for kayaking a couple of times in high school, and yeah, they're super tight. I think they work by holding a layer of water next to your skin and warming that up, though, so I understand why the store clerk said you needed to down a size. Try not to get sand on a wet wetsuit! It's impossible to brush off and it chafes something fierce when you're putting it on lol.
Posted by: lisa | August 25, 2009 at 10:11 PM
Oh, and for gold key necklaces, I'm not sure, but perhaps a search on Etsy would yield some options?
Posted by: lisa | August 25, 2009 at 10:13 PM
Thanks for the Etsy tip. You really can find anything there. I ordered: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=29371888. Wearing it soon on Badaude!
Posted by: badaude | August 26, 2009 at 05:10 AM
Love this. And love love love the game of ping-pong. I never really got into beach fashions, not being a swimmer... I feel like I'm missing out now.
Posted by: Sally | August 27, 2009 at 12:58 PM
I never understood beach ping-pong. Doesn't the ball blow away? Isn't a beach just the worst venue you could choose for a game of tableless table tennis? Or could it be some kind of extreme sport Ping-Pong where players challenge each other to games in increasingly inhospitable locations?
Posted by: badaude | August 27, 2009 at 01:33 PM