2021.06.29 Escape
This carnival of naked flesh is supposed to celebrate the longest night of the year bleeding into the shortest day, a twilight zone observed since ancient times and one supposed to symbolise a transferal of energy and ritual cleansing of the soul.
Today, this shedding of clothes and inhibitions signals something very different. It brings down the curtain on Hobart’s infamous Dark Mofo Festival, MONA mad genius David Walsh’s annual orgy of art, food, fire, music, light… and nudity.
This year’s Solstice Swim is special. It’s the first since 2019 and possibly the last. After calling for registrations and filling them within 25 minutes, 1,500 people from all over the world have been granted the right to get starkers in public.
It’s three degrees at 7am. The sky is a big purple bruise and there’s weird mysterious vapours rising off the water. It couldn’t be weirder. But as I stand there waiting for the sun to come up, a full moon rises right before my eyes.
It belongs to an old lady, eighty-years-old if she’s a day. She’s casually disrobing, tossing her clothes into a pile, leaving just a red swimming cap and a big grin. Others join her. Young hipsters. Old roosters. Mothers with daughters. Friends.
Everyone disrobes their own way. Some shuck off one garment at a time under a towel. Others rip off layers in a flash. Generally, it’s boots first, beanies last. Some put a towel back on for modesty’s sake. A few strip, stand, then – eek! – stretch.
This isn’t my first nude swim but it’s certainly my most public. We’re packed in pretty tight (even if our junk isn’t) so I find the trickiest part is getting my gear off without giving someone an eyeful of my Eiffel tower and arc de triumph.
Blissfully nude, I look around at an Attenborough doco gone wonderfully wrong. Humans of all shapes and ages are gloriously naked, awaiting starter’s orders. Nips are akimbo. Maps of Tassie unfurled. Peckers retract like frightened turtles.
A drum beat strikes up, low and thudding, a battle hymn for bare flesh. There are 30-odd lifesavers in attendance and their safety briefing is succinct: “If you get in trouble, raise your hand. You’ll recognise the lifesavers – they’ll have clothes on.”
As the drumrolls build, our annual migration of pink fleshy creatures clap along. It’s as much to generate heat as keep the beat. Really, we’re psyching ourselves up for what’s ahead of us: a sheet of black water as cold as a penguin’s pecker.
The drums reach crescendo and a blood-red flare streaks the sky. We’re off!
I run for the water like David Hassellhoff on his buck’s night and as fast as my jiggling bits will allow and plunge in head-first. O! My! Great!! Giddy!!! Aunt!!!
Immediately I’m in shock. Yet my fear of swimming face-first into someone’s flabby bum drives me on. I thrash my arms and kick for a buoy 20-metres out.
As I turn for home I’m met with a vision even frosted eyeballs will never un-see.
A motley pod of pink dolphins has grown legs and is waddling up the sand. They are screaming and whooping, crying with laughter, shrieking with manic delight. It’s a bit like the beach at Gallipoli except everyone’s happy, nude and retreating.
I swim slower on the way back, marveling at the spectacle unfolding around me. A nude man in a wheelchair has pitched forward and is being helped back into his chair. A line of old ladies is walking up the sand arm-in-arm. Two old blokes are shaking hands, eye to eye. A tattooed man stands with eyes closed, exultant.
I’m overwhelmed at how strange and beautiful and human an experience this is. But mostly I’m struck by how ridiculous we humans look without our clothes on.
Back on the beach I dry off, but the towel feels like a sheet of aluminium foil on my frigid skin. I reach for my undies and catch a glimpse of their usual residents. Alas, the squirrel is now an acorn and the nuts long ago went into hibernation.
Back in coat, jeans and beanie, my teeth chatter and my toes and fingertips tingle. Clothed and normal again, we gather at fire-pits and a hip flask goes round. We slowly warm, but grins never leave our faces, laughter keeps rolling off our lips.
Turns out, there’s a kinship only mass nudity in a public place can create.
Do I feel cleansed? Yes. Am I a dirty mofo? Maybe. Is the truth naked? Definitely.
