Beach Etiquette

So, having come from New Zealand, and being familiar with the beach antics there, let me now tell you about what you can do on the beach in Makarska, and concentrate because you don’t want to stand out and do something different.

We have already touched briefly on Beach Attire for males – speedos or those lycra shorts are pretty much universal. Some should, some shouldn’t, but life’s like that.

Females are all in bikinis. Again, some should, some shouldn’t.

The little children I feel vaguely sorry for because they have buckets and have an expectation (because there were pictures on the packaging) that they will be able to make sandcastles. Not going to happen. Stones don’t have the same qualities as sand.

But now that you are dressed, the entertainment begins. If you are a teenager, you pool your money with your mates, and you hire a padelina (think that is how you would spell that word. I can’t give you the details of what this costs, but there are lots available, and they are so much fun!

Based on the theory of relativity and parity, if a beach lounger is 30 kuna for the day, I would say the padelina would be, mozda, 70 kuna.
But you pile all of your friends onto it, and you race around on the water – down the slide, bombs off the side, ram other padelinas. Possibilities are endless! You need two people to paddle, and other people to just look cool. Note – there was one boy in one by himself, and he really wasn’t having much fun. You really need all of your mates.
I think you have this for an hour at a time, and when your time is up, the guy running it will whistle out to you, and gesture to come in. Stage two is when he whistles, gestures and puts his hands on his hips – you don’t want to go there.

Option two for beach fun is lifting each other up to dive them from a great height – groups of boys particularly, standing in twos (with the third person on the other two boys hands, shouting ‘jedan, dva, tri….’ And then the tossers toss the tossee as far out into the water as possible.
Option three is the old hand ball variation – like a hacky sack but you do it with your hands – and conviction is the key – if you have to dive into the sea to get it, it is expected from you. Conviction.
But the beautiful ‘extra’ that comes with all of these activities is singing. The teenagers playing these games sing together while they are playing. Or swimming. Or paddling. It’s beautiful, and by now, I know the tunes and some of the words too. But the loveliest thing is that none of this is ‘not cool’. They are all having fun, all doing what you do at the beach. How cool!