Continuing this week’s theme of one-word titles for blog posts, the word of today is ‘sunbeds.’ It seems to have been the word of the season so far with visitors and locals alike endlessly discussing the things at the bar and on social media. Everyone has an opinion, it seems, and when talking about beaches, lots of people have advice on what ‘they’ should do, what ‘they’ should provide and charge. Some aren’t happy with what ‘they’ are providing and for how much, and how many ‘they’ have now got on their beach, while another ‘they’ have this, and wasn’t it better when ‘they’ did that? And if only ‘they’ could do this. Whoever this ubiquitous non-gender specific ‘they’ is or are, they are not going short of advice, that’s for sure.
The last time I used a sunbed was pre-2015. Having decided to take a Sunday morning off, the two of us packed up a beach bag—you know, shoved everything in as though we were going trekking for six weeks—and walked down to Pedi to claim a free sunbed at Apostolos by 9.30. The intention was to spend the morning on the beach pretending we were on holiday, stay for lunch and for me to catch the 14.30 bus back up to get to the bar for work by three. I lay down on the sunbed at 9.45, woke up at 11.45, and walked home. Not because there was anything wrong with the thing; ‘they’ had provided me with a decent one, but because, frankly, there are always better things I could be doing than lying in the shade doing nothing. On which note, why aren’t they called shade beds?
They are not for everyone, that’s for sure, and that’s partly due to the techniques that must be mastered before successfully using one. Getting onto one of the things is tricky enough in my experience. There’s an art to it.
You can sit in the middle side-saddle, then hoist yourself around in an arc to land with feet at one end, head at the other, only to realise it’s not at the correct angle, so you hoist back again, reach around to move the sloping part, unhook it and collapse face-first in an ungainly heap. Assuming you haven’t severed a few digits in this process, you then yank the back bit up while putting your weight on it and hope the slidey bit finds the correct notch, only to find it doesn’t, and you either collapse again or end up sitting upright as if in some Victorian health contraption. By this time, it’s time to cool off in the sea, so you waddle in, returning later to repeat the process.
Then there’s the straddle technique where you get one leg on either side, and lower yourself to a sitting position only for the thing to clamp shut over you like a Venus Flytrap.
Of, course, you have to put your towel down first, and that’s the easy part. If you’re sensible, you can arrange the tilt angle before you mount the thing, and if you are an expert, you can glide gently to place amid oohs and ahs from an impressed stranger who has already settled in to share your intimate, semi-naked bathing space not two feet away.
I don’t advise throwing yourself face-first or even backwards onto one as they are unpredictable, and you never know what enforced yoga position you will end up in.
Once aboard, though, you can lie back and make yourself comfortable before noticing the earth has continued its orbit around the sun, and the shade has now moved, and so must you. There are two ways to complete this part of the assault course:
Grabbing the sides while still prone and spasming your way a few inches towards the shade. This method is also known as the electro-shock technique.
Or, disembarking, dragging, turning, looking up, whipping out your sextant, checking the angle of an observed object, noting the ‘dip’, sighting the horizon, the time of the zenith and the declination of the celestial orb against the desired direction divided by the length of time intending to remain, and then remount using whatever technique has been mastered. (Full details can be found in chapter six, ‘The Master and Commander Style of Sunbed Adjustment’ in my forthcoming tome, ‘Surviving a Symi Summer.’ Hardly University Press.)
That done, and all settled in and sorted, you can then fish around underneath for your bag to grab your latest Jackson Marsh and continue from chapter five, only to realise it’s way back up the beach by now, and what happened to your towel? Ah well, a few minutes catching the rays and it’s down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky, with red strap marks across your back, or the imprint of a manufacturer endorsing your behind, and cool off with a dip. Later, returning to your pre-marked territory, you discover a family of nomadic circus performers has encroached, dragged the second sunbed of your pair to elsewhere, not knowing you were keeping it for no reason other than you didn’t want anyone else to sit near you.
You’ll need a lie down after all that, and on most beaches on Symi, you can do just that. How much you will pay, whether you will be on one of the new tier-and-tariff systems, paying X amount for a back row, or taking out a mortgage for the front row, or packed somewhere mid-stalls with no privacy or view, well… that depends on the beach. Whether you get your own personal torture device for free as long as you spend X amount in the café bar or restaurant depends on where you are. Whether you get a bamboo shade that leaves you with a burlap tan, or a collapsible umbrella (the use of which is the subject of an optional instruction manual), or whether you have one of those ‘set-in-a-concrete block and don’t you dare move it’ affairs, all depends on where you are.
Hopefully, you’ll find the perfect match for you, and while looking at the many beaches offering their various arrangements, you won’t think, ‘They’ should do this…’ You won’t criticise ‘They’ for not providing you with exactly what you want, or for over-providing the facilities because they are expecting an entire Virgin cruise ship to empty on their shores, and you won’t bad-mouth ‘They’ if you don’t like what you see and find. If you don’t like it, move on. There’s plenty of choice around the island. For me, I’ll continue to stay well away from the deathtraps, but that’s my choice, and I wish all the hard-working ‘Theys’ out there every success in whatever arrangements they have on offer, because, at the end of the day on the beach, everyone has to make a living.
