Snapshots of seagulls from Manly beach
While this is low on the science and psychology, hopefully the pictures may bring forth some warm and fuzzy feelings to replace those deep thoughts. The intention of this was to give a presentation of Sydney’s famous Manly surf beach, but it turned into a meditation over thongs (Aussie language for flip-flops), seagulls in the sunset and heavy photoshopping. Bear with me.
Manly beach is Sydney’s foremost metropolitan surf beach - more so than the slightly more famous Bondi Beach (which has other advantages, I am sure). 
The beach is a 3+ km long stretch of fine white sand which faces both south towards Antarctic swells and north against Pacific hurricanes - particularly bad weather over Fiji invariably means good surf in the South Steyne corner of Manly beach.
There is also a set of more advanced breaks on the outside. North-to-south they go from the Queenie Bombora offshore reef that fires off only in massive swells, through an unnamed reef that just goes off at unspecific waves, over to the Fairy Bower right-hand pointbreak and through to the horror that is Deadmans on the outside.
The range of different breaks makes Manly a perfect surf wonderland, able to take almost any kind of surfable swell and turn it into something appropriate, all in a walk’s distance. I’ll post more pictures of the surf later - the problem is only that when it’s surfable, going to the beach with a camera and not a board is just so very wrong.
The inspiration, and reason, for these pictures was David Hancock’s recent photo book on Manly. 
The book is a beautiful photographic memorabilia over the suburb of Manly and it’s inhabitants and is a great documentation of the suburb. As Hancock says, “It is one of the most beautifully intact environments in the world this close to a major city. [..] We’ve got whales, turtles, penguins and a truly amazing diversity of underwater life.” - and that is indeed true. Manly is 30 minutes (15 with a speedboat) away from central Sydney by ferry, but still boasts a reasonably unspoiled nature reserve as well as the before-mentioned surf, and several secluded beaches. Still, however, it is very well possible to live in Manly, and the township and nightlife is one of the best in the whole of Sydney.
So what would be more natural than showing some photos of the local seagulls?
It would be very interesting to know of other major cities in the world that has the same kind of vacation destination-quality suburbs with easy access to protected nature. I believe Rio de Janeiro and Honolulu have similar possibilities, possibly also San Diego, California.
I am very interested in hearing about others I haven’t considered, though. Please leave suggestions in the comment field!
Manly is also home to what is probably the newspaper in the world with the highest ratio of “cat caught in tree”-type articles, the Manly Daily. There was (very untypically) a shooting in the main road three days ago, but at the time being the newspaper has still not found that important enough to replace the story of the baby who was born on the bridge.
That kind of will to focus on what’s good in life is just enviable.
