catch the drift

Though Manly, just a quick ferry ride from Central Sydney, has morphed in the last two decades from a scruffy commuter hub into the picture of antipodean easy living, it’s still defined by the people who thrive along its shores

By Toby Skinner

there’s something almost religious about the start of the Bold and Beautiful swim, from the Manly Life Saving Club to Shelley Beach, about half a mile around the rocky coast, and back again. Every morning at seven o’clock, a hundred or so people of all ages wade into the water in bright pink swim caps and Speedos, like budgie-smuggler Baptists. At a distance they resemble the cast-iron figures of British sculptor Antony Gormley, barely distinguishable from one another, looking to the water for answers. My sister lives in Manly, a beachy suburb on a peninsula at the southern end of Sydney’s Northern Beaches. I’ve been coming for 20 years, doing the odd Bold and Beautiful swim since it started with five people on Boxing Day in 2008. Today, more than 17,000…

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Conde Nast Traveler (Digital) - 1 Issue, January/February 2021

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