Lifeguards.

Trident recently spoke to a lifeguard who wished to remain anonymous. The lifeguard had the following to say: “Well, we try really hard to act like douchebags when it comes to surfers. You see, for the most part we know they don’t need our services at all, and as we’ll never be as cool as them in our speedo’s and stuff. So, it’s far easier to just act like self righteous dooses wherever they surf, even if there are no swimmers around at all.”

Ok, fine – Trident can’t back this statement up – this is sheer fantasy and shoddy journalism. However, Trident is 100% convinced this is exactly what a lifeguard would say if one were to actually speak to them.

Municipal lifeguards seem to think they’re auditioning for Baywatch or something. Unlike volunteer lifeguards, who do so out of a sense of duty, pride and safety, the paid lifeguards are ironically, far less fit, far less competent, and are basically paid to sit around at the calmest beach all day, occasionally playing around on jetskies or dropping in on Trident on paddleboards and such.

Now, it seems like a wonderful idea to have paid, permanent lifeguards – but this is a wonderful idea in the same way putting peanut butter in the fridge or invading Poland is a wonderful idea. This is simply because these guys don’t do all that much, or – in the case of more dangerous beaches – they’re not there at all.

However, Trident would argue that if more of them looked like Pamela or Yasmine, we’d be more welcoming of lifeguards in general.

Some lifeguards surf. Or try to. Paddleboards don’t count. Many are competent surfers, but frankly – they tend to be competent lifeguards as well, who understand the rules of surfing are their own entity. There are other lifeguards of course, who approach surfing the same way a ‘roided-up personal trainer from Gauteng would – with about as much grace as an enraged, flatulent buffalo in an Michelin starred restaurant. (Which is to say, no grace whatsoever.) The rules of safe beaches and swimming are different to surfing. We have our own rules and etiquette which are not easily understood by surf outsiders. Nevertheless, as lifeguards are part and parcel of beach culture, they feel they already know how to surf let alone know the rules of surfing. Understanding how to paddle through a breaking wave on a malibu, and knowing how to surf are very different things. The same way sticking feathers up your butt doesn’t make you a peacock, paddling through waves on a malibu does not make you a surfer.

Yet, for all their follies and faults, they do try and they do serve a purpose. Even if that purpose is to look after the general public, and not the scowling surfers who live by their own rules.