KEY POINTS:
You have to pay if you want to go to the beach on the Mediterranean coast.
It's not much - a couple of dollars, usually. And for that you get a deckchair or a lounger on a patch of rocky coastline and permission to swim in a roped-off piece of water, slick with suntan oil and hair grease.
There's usually an ageing Don Juan in charge of the money collection, barely dressed in white Speedos that are almost overshadowed by a splendidly big, round tummy.
There aren't generally mosquitoes on the Mediterranean coast but there are Don Juan's assistants, slim-hipped young boys with evil intent who buzz around the young girls incessantly.
The young girls chain-smoke, as indeed do their bare-breasted mothers, and it's horrifying to see the spectacular collapse that lies in wait for the gorgeous young girl creatures.
The young ones probably believe that they'll be slim and lithe forever but, as their mothers prove, age is a great leveller. And this is a day at the beach on the Amalfi Coast.
It made me realise how lucky we are in New Zealand to have such beautiful beaches free and available for all. But hearing about the funding crisis for Surf Life Saving New Zealand also made me realise how little we value that which is free.
Every weekend, young men and women all around New Zealand spend their Saturdays and Sundays patrolling New Zealand's treacherous coastline.
Certainly, there are paid lifeguards during the week for some of the holiday period but, as the paid lifeguards are funded by local councils, the employment of professional lifeguards is ad hoc and unreliable.
Every weekend, lifesavers pull people out of the water, risking their own lives to do so and, in many cases, not even getting a word of thanks in return. In the northern region alone, taking in Auckland's notorious West Coast beaches, surf lifesavers performed 69 rescues and administered first aid in 129 instances. And that was in just one month, between October and November last year.
And yet far from being treated with the respect they deserve, lifesavers do it tough. Their cars, parked behind the clubhouses, are often vandalised and, in a few cases, lifeguards have been abused by drunken hoons who aren't worthy to swim in the same water as the volunteers.
And every year, administrators of the code have to scratch around trying to come up with enough money to buy the equipment, maintain the clubhouses and keep up the training required to enable New Zealand's beaches to be patrolled safely.
Compulsory swimming lessons no longer seem to be given at primary school. Those days of standing on the concrete ledge of an icy swimming pool, teeth chattering and legs trembling with cold, about to dive in to complete your Level 1 certificate appear to be over. The number of New Zealanders who have little, or no idea how to be safe in the sea, is growing. So we need our precious lifesavers more than ever before on the beaches.
The Government doesn't fund surf lifesavers. So why not make it user-pays? Have an expectation that every beach user contributes a minimum of a gold coin donation to their local surf club.
We don't flinch at spending $15 to go the movies. We're happy to spend $40 to take the family out for pizza. And yet even the suggestion that we pay one or two dollars towards the people who are keeping our families safe drew a horrified response from many talkback callers, people who are no doubt quite happy to park themselves on the beach and be the first to scream for help when things turn to custard.
Thank heavens for the corporate sponsors, but let's realise that we are only truly able to enjoy a day at the beach because we have the security blanket of thousands of men and women willing to give up their time to ensure we can all have a good time. We'd sure miss them if they were gone. And sometimes the only way to realise the value of what you have is to find it's not there any more.
