Are you a freshie or a saltie? Wendy Harmer says it’s all in the gene pool

First Nations people describe themselves as “freshwater,” “saltwater,” or “desert” people. I lived inland throughout my youth and didn’t go to the beach until I was a teenager. I didn’t really care. I’m from the freshwater gang; I am one of those who prefer rivers, streams and lakes and find our deep love within us.

My father was a public school teacher. He also coached swimming until his late 70s, but was always at the municipal pool. To him, the beach meant sand in the car, sand in sandwiches, glass in the sand and sharks in the water. My dad absolutely hated the beach.

While other families were enjoying the warm sand between their toes, we were at home in the cool, oozing mud on the grassy shore of a pond. Holidays were spent camping in tents by a river and I grew to love the many beautiful waterways of the Victorian midlands.

Thanks to my father, I am a good swimmer and exercise regularly in the pool.

It’s funny how life turns out. It is said that you married a man like your father, but in at least one respect, this statement could not be more wrong.

For the last 30 years, I have been married to a dedicated “waxhead” who lives to surf and surfs to live. He goes out in all weather (where surfing is possible) and comes home after dark. I swear he’s a merman. All this time as an activist with Surfrider Foundation Australia, I share my home with 15 surfboards (which I just counted).

I won’t even try to enumerate the wetsuits, rash vests, and wooden wax pellets. I’ve learned to know the difference between “offshore,” “blown up,” or “glassy.”

As I write this, I’m in the back of our house, where I have my desk and a calming view of Narrabeen Lake. There is no view out front, with the restless, mighty Pacific Ocean approaching.

We live on Sydney’s northern beaches, where there are about 20 magnificent, world-famous beaches between Manly and Palm Beach. (Although I like to call it “peninsula, daahling” at its northernmost tip, I learned that the hard way when I first moved here from Melbourne in the ’90s.)

Last summer I dived in the ocean twice. Yes, just the two. This confuses my husband. He is horrified. I was dragged to shore by my daughter. Blue-eyed, blonde and a regular surfer, she is a “saltwater” girl like her father. My son (dark hair, brown eyes) follows me. “Fresh water” from start to finish. I guess it’s in the genes.

You’ll think I’m a terrible snob, but I always thought there was a certain etiquette that was observed by us “freshers” and not understood by the “salty” ones. The difference between eating at a good restaurant and eating at the cafeteria.

On a riverbank, you always make sure there’s a big tree or a bend between you and the next crowd, and if you trespass, you’ll scurry past like a small marsupial so as not to disturb their peaceful paradise. On the beach, the other group sits next to you, puts up parasols, sets up volleyball nets, turns up the music and shows their naked parts in your face. Rude.

Perhaps the defining moment of my antipathy towards waves came when I was pregnant. I was round like a beach ball and stuck on a shoreline; I was doing somersaults, I couldn’t stand up. My beloved husband laughed so much that he collapsed on the sand. At home, in the shower, I took off my swimsuit and realized I caught a fish in my cleavage. A real, live fish. Friends, this is not the way to go fishing.

I’m the one covering my head with a towel at the beach; just like the dormouse in AA Milne’s poem, who covers his eyes with his paws to avoid seeing yellow and white chrysanthemums and dreams of red geraniums and blue delphiniums.

Wendy Harmer is a broadcaster, comedian, author and performer.

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