A Bondi lifeguard’s tips for a safe New Year’s Day beach party

About 30,000 people head to Bondi Beach on New Year’s Day. Bruce “Hoppo” Hopkins is in charge of making sure everyone stays safe.

ME: It feels like New Year’s Day has become Sydney’s annual Beach Day. What’s it like working on a big occasion like that?
BH: It’s quite a good vibe on New Year’s Day. It’s renowned for people coming down to watch the sunrise. If it’s a nice morning they’ll come down from whatever they’ve done the night before. Usually, you’ll get a fair crowd and it mellows out around mid-morning. Then everyone starts waking up and they all decide to come down to the beach, whether that’s locals, people out west, or tourists. It’s a nice vibe.

Bruce “Hoppo” Hopkins, co-ordinator of Lifeguard Services at Waverley Council, on duty at Bondi Beach.Credit: Steven Siewert

I suspect you’ve seen some things over the years as the sun comes up?
It can be quite entertaining setting up at 6am on New Year’s Day. You’re checking out people face down, making sure they’re OK and that they can get home safe. There’s plenty of times we’ve had to call ambulances. And then there’s a few others, they’ve met the night before and they’re having a cuddle on the beach and enjoying the sunrise and it’s good entertainment.

What are some of the New Year’s traditions on Bondi Beach?
In the late arvo you get about 500-800 Dutch people who do their gathering and then run into the water for the first day of the year. They do it at 4pm which is apparently 7am over in the Netherlands, and everywhere around the world they do it at whatever time it is to match 7am. They’re all dressed up in their orange Dutch gear and go running into the water. That can be an issue, if we’ve got a big crowd on the beach and they arrive and run into the water and we’ve got to gather them up and tell them not to run directly into where a rip is. Otherwise you’ve got 800 people floating around in a rip. They all run in wearing their beanies. Probably because it’s mimicking that it’s freezing cold in the Netherlands.

You’re essentially an emergency service. Is it hard to stay on your game in that kind of party atmosphere?
You’ve got to keep your mind on the game. They’re long days but we have some good patrolling strategies where we have eyes on every part of the water on the beach and also we get good fatigue breaks. We rotate around so we’re not stuck on the beach for hours upon hours in the sun. That’s when your concentration goes. It doesn’t take much to drop and then it’s easy to miss someone particularly if you have 25-30,000 people at the beach.

Bondi used to be known for boozy backpackers on Christmas Day. How has that changed over the years?
I’ve been here a long time. In the ’90s into the early 2000s it was a massive sort of party and you’d see them coming down Bondi Road with cartons of beers, all having Santa hats on. I remember some years they’d have the flags of their nations, no matter if they’re Swedish or Italian, or whoever they were, they’d go to their flag, even if they didn’t know the people. They’d all gather around their own country’s flag and start partying. Later they’d all join up after a few drinks and there’d just be one massive party.

Bondi Beach on New Year’s Day 2022.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Bit different now?
It was crazy times. It was fun at the time but the only problem was once they had too much to drink they all decided they wanted to go into the water and it created problems for lifeguards to control a crowd that big and being intoxicated. That’s where Waverley Council came in with banning alcohol which was a good move. It was starting to get too out of control. You don’t want someone to drown under those circumstances. Since that came in it’s way more manageable for the lifeguards - everyone still has fun but it’s just not the intoxicated people.

You mentioned crowds of up to 30,000 – are you expecting that post-COVID?
At the moment I wouldn’t say we’d get much more than that. We are starting to come back but it’s nowhere near what it was pre-COVID. We haven’t hit those numbers tourists-wise yet. Generally they’re all in by the end of October and in November, you can see them all piling in and taking up all the rentals and backpackers and they start filtering down to the beach in the afternoons. There’s been a few but nowhere near as many as we used to have.

You’ve done this for more than 30 years. What are the bad things that can happen?
On a big day there’s rips. Our record for rescues in a day is 240. You don’t want to see someone drown in a rip, and have to try to resuscitate them. That’s the worst part of the job, if you’re unable to resuscitate them. Generally, you’ve got family and friends standing around, watching. There’s nothing worse than losing a loved one. That takes its toll on the lifeguards.

You must’ve been affected by incidents you’ve seen. How do you deal with it?
We’re lucky now, previously we trained physically to do the job and rescue people but we’d never trained mentally. The last five years we’ve had a psychologist come in and train us mentally to deal with major situations. That’s been really good. It’s knowing that being a lifeguard you’re going to get a serious situation at some stage. It’s training everybody to prepare for when that happens rather than just waiting for it to happen and trying to deal with it after the fact. That’s been beneficial for all the guys and girls.

What should I do if I’m caught in a rip and starting to panic?
The big tip is to float and go with the flow of the water. The longer you can float gives the lifeguard more time to rescue you. If you float the majority of the time it will take you across the sandbank or out where the surfers are lining up to catch a wave. We’ve found if you float and don’t struggle and conserve your energy then a lot of people are surviving on their own and we don’t have to rescue them. The ones who try and swim when they’re in a rip want to swim back to where they are coming from because they thought it was a safe spot but it’s generally straight back into the rip. Then they panic when they fatigue. The old saying: float to survive.

You’re 54 and have been doing this for 31 years. Ever had another job?
When I left school I worked at 2GB in the late 80s and 90s, with [rugby league commentators] Greg Hartley and Peter Peters. I was doing a lot of long weeks and weekends and realised that being a lifeguard was an option as I could still compete [in ski races] at the beach. I was only going to do it for five years and I’m still here. I’m coming to the end of my career. I guess it depends how long the body keeps up.

Any skin cancers?
I’ve had a few frozen off. One cut out on my shoulder. That wasn’t cancerous. I haven’t been too bad. I get checked every 12 months.

OK, the big question – budgie smugglers or boardies?
Definitely boardies for the lifeguards. You won’t see my skinny legs in budgie smugglers.

Peter FitzSimons is on leave.

---

The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.