On a perfect Cape Town day, Ally, some friends, and I made the beautiful trek along the Atlantic coast to Sandy Bay. Being a nudist beach, the experience requires a level of tactical preparation that a standard trip to Clifton does not.
I was meticulous. I was incredibly careful to apply layers of sunscreen to my "privates," knowing that parts of me usually shrouded in textiles were about to face the harsh African sun for the first time. I was also on high alert with the refreshments. Ally had brought a flask of hot coffee, and I sat with the posture of a statue; I’ve always been inclined to spill drinks in my lap, and I knew that a scalding coffee mishap in the nude would be a disaster from which I might never recover.
When I hit the water, I was equally cautious. There was a bit of a rip that day, so I kept my boogy boarding to the safer, shallower breaks. I felt like a master of risk management.
However, nature always finds the gap in your defenses.
Despite all my careful planning, the day ended in a two-front tactical failure. First, I discovered that the relentless friction of boogy boarding in the nude is a biological error; the wax and the board combined to give me a rather nasty, agonizing rash on my most intimate areas.
Second, I realized that in my obsessive quest to protect the "valuables" with sunscreen, I had completely neglected the surrounding territory. I had left a wide, unprotected ring around my naked hips. While my center was safely shielded, my hips were glowing a radioactive shade of crimson.
I walked back from the beach that day with a very specific, wide-legged gait—partly to soothe the rash and partly because my burnt hips couldn't bear the touch of my own clothes. It was a painful reminder that no matter how much you prepare for the "big" risks, it’s the small, overlooked details that usually get you in the end.
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