First field trip, nippers

On the 13th of March for my sports in Australia class we went on our first field trip of the semester and paid a visit to Maroubra Beach.  All that I knew before going to Maroubra was that it had a reputation for having some tough kids but also as being one of the better surfing beaches in the Sydney area.  I got this information from a documentary that I was informed about through one of my friends who was here last semester, Bra Boys.  Needless to say I was excited to go to this famous beach and possibly encounter one of these many surfing legends.

The real reason that we were headed to the beach was to witness a program called "nippers."  Nippers is a program in which children between the ages of five and fourteen learn to become beach patrollers.  The main focus of the program is not always on rescuing people but a major portion focuses on learning beach safety and learning about the surf, rip currents, tides, etc.  The picture to the right of this paragraph is a picture of the nippers competiting in a race in which they had to run around adults in the ocean and then sprint in the sand back to their original starting point.  This provided a lot of entertainment and laughs for these young children. 
Later in the day I headed over to Bondi beach with a few of my friends and I saw a young boy probably about five years old wearing a Bondi Nippers shirt.  I stopped and talked to him for a quick second and he was ecstatic when I showed interest in his nippers program.  As I was walking away the boy was still smiling and it made waking up at 7:30 a.m. that Sunday worth it.  If I had not taken my sports in Australia class I would have never stopped to talk to the young boy at Bondi and would have never had any idea what an important part of the beach community this program is.