Manly Beach

This guide to Manly Beach in Sydney turns on William Gocher, a local newspaper editor who waded into the surf here at noon in October 1902, defying a law that banned daylight swimming while police watched to stop him. For more than a century the beach told this as the moment daylight surf bathing began, and plaques and anniversary swims still mark his defiance. You'll hear about the twice-nothing, third-time confrontation between Gocher and the officers who finally marched him out. Best heard standing on the sand, facing the water he waded into.