My memories of summer holidays are intimately tied to breasts.
During summer school holidays as a teenager, I used to ride my bike to a beach about half an hour away from home. I remember one year I had an electronics project underway (to build the electronics for a tape recorder) and I disciplined myself to work each morning on that and then to the beach in the afternoon.
My favorite beach of the time (and for many years) was Half Moon Bay. Arriving from my direction there was a long (about 200m) winding path down to the beach where I would lock my bike and get a spot. I would sometimes meet up with a mate who had a yacht and we would go sailing together. Or a group of us would meet up and swim out to the Cerberus. Quite often though, I would have a lot of time to myself and, in between swims, I would wander up and down the beach looking at — you guessed it — breasts.
When we men (and boys) say we are looking at breasts, we mean we are looking at women. Breasts might be our focal point, but we love seeing women. At the beach we see lots of lovely beautiful women. We see the shape of their hips, the curve of their legs, their smooth skin. The curve of their back leading to un-mistakenly female shoulders and neck. Finally we are led to their beautiful hair and faces. Without all this, breasts would be nothing, but we still love breasts.
These first years of riding my bike to the beach were a time of growing up for me. Previously we had gone to the beach as a family or our longsuffering mum had taken us on the train to Aspendale where we played on the beach as children.
Now I was independent and could explore independently. Their were two rituals for boys at the time. One was to swim out to the Cerberus — about 200m from shore. The other was to climb over the point at the north end of the beach through to the next beach at Red Bluff. In between the two beaches are two small coves. Coinciding with my first experiences climbing across the point was the development of a new phenomenon on Melbourne's beaches — topless sunbathing. And one of the popular places for these daring young women to go was the second of these small coves.
My anticipation was heightened when friends at school whispered "they go topless down there you know." I couldn't wait to find out for myself. I was almost shaking the first time I climbed over on a sunny day. And sure enough there were two or three women who had discarded their tops for the day. It was the first time I had seen bare breasts "in the flesh". As you climb over the point, you are above the cove and climb down into it. I found an excuse that day to stay on the ledge for quite a while.
The north end of Half Moon Bay is still a popular place for topless (or as I have now learnt to say "topfree") sunbathing. And I still tend to find myself down there a couple of times each summer.
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