Hooray! After an algae bloom that closed the beach for a week, it was re-opened today and we got into the sea at last, tramping backwards and forwards between our sunbeams and the water. Exhilarating might be the word I’m looking for here.

This evening, we went for a couple of drinks in one of my favourite beach bars. I’m not sure if it’s a full moon tonight. If it’s not, it’s tomorrow. So a beautiful starlit sky was filled with constellations and a bright moon as we ordered Mojitos, then more Mojitos. We were a bit tiddly. 🙂 Nothing like last week and jumping over bonfires, but I knew alcohol had been consumed as we kicked off our shoes and dabbled our feet in the cool sand.

It was also a warm night, so we didn’t need to wear much, just flimsy sundresses (and ‘going commando’ is very much a holiday thing anyway at night).

The sea was illuminated with the moon dancing on it, and we decided that a little night swimming was in order. Nudity is very much part of this beach bar’s daylight culture anyway, so no one really batted an eyelid when we slipped out of out clothing (Sylvia also have persuaded a Dutch couple and a Spanish local guy) to join us.

It was thrilling and invigorating to do that at midnight 🙂

The picture (above) almost exactly replicates the scene. Yes, we did take photos but no, they didn’t come out at all well, just blurs of moonlight rippled on a black background without human form evident. 😦

It was rather wonderful, though 🙂 Probably we’ll do more of the same tomorrow. I wonder if we can improve the photos so that a sense of someone, anyone, is possible?

Ella

I don’t take the decision to publish photographs of myself -albeit slightly ‘disguised’- lightly. Yes, Sylvia has taken several from our apartment so they’re at ‘distance’. Others have been blurred slightly to ‘protect the guilty’. I’m not about ‘exhibitionism’, but trying to convey how marvellous naturism really is.

I got into Second Life on the assumption that its ‘naturists’ would be real life naturists with whom I could share naturist experiences. That’s not always the case. In fact, it’s rarely the case. Many SL naturists are only naturists within the context of the game, not real life. But within the game I noticed there was a misconception, sometimes, about what naturism is (i.e. that it was being made about sex when its not). Over the course of 7 years I’ve seen a lot of changes regarding naturism within SL, most of it positive. Nowadays, I think, players have a much broader understanding of what it is and isn’t about. And if they don’t know what it is about, I’ll tell them, either here on the blog or in-world.

On recent holidays I’ve nudged around ‘real life’ photos. Why? Because if I’m going to attempt to convey the pleasures of naturism, I need to demonstrate that on the basis of ‘a picture being worth a thousand words’. If we’ve reached a broad understanding of exactly what naturism is within Second Life, and now see some of the game’s great naturist sims providing an accurate reflection of real life naturism, the hope is that maybe players know what it is and what it isn’t.

Maybe one or two ‘virtual’ naturists have even decided to take the plunge into RL naturism as a result of being schooled in the finer points of naturism through these excellent SL naturist sims. Who knows?

I’ve reached a point in my personal life where I tell people about my interest in naturism, my activity in it. It can only grow as a movement, as a lifestyle, as accepted as perfectly normal if more if us speak up about it. Putting up RL photos was both terrifying and liberating, almost as liberating as going naturist for the very first time.

It’s a photo…out there in cyberspace…forever!

This year the personal photos have been a little less coy than last year’s RL photos. A little braver but not, yet, at the point where it’s a full, crisp and clear set of photos. But that point is coming, I think! 🙂

By the way, the baseball cap wasn’t meant as ‘disguise’ (although it operated on that level too) but practicality under a hot sun…it was keeping the sun directly off the top of my head). And as usual, no glasses on, blind as a bat, and quite often unaware who else is around or in the pool. In the top photo, for example, Sylvia called my name and I turned towards her voice, but not exactly sure where she was 🙂

I think, then, when I return in September, we may well reach a point where, as an active RL & SL naturist, I might end up back on the blog’s pages as I really am. 🙂 Or not.

Ella

(edited to add: Getting braver 😉 These from a just completed swim 20 minutes ago. Again, photos by Sylvia (who despite being the more brash of the two of us, is a little more reluctant to get in front of the lens for you)

Another sneaky update… 😉

It pays to check out the archives, hahaha.

Just to prove I own more than one baseball cap to keep the sun off my head 😉 But thank goodness that palm leaf means that you’ve got to use your imagination to put the various shots together to create a whole.

Friday: 8pm. Home…and…

…camera shake is good sometimes 🙂

SL uses a lot of system resources, and my laptop -in 40 degrees of heat- has fans running full tilt when I go in-world. As a result I suspect I won’t be in-world a lot between now and the weekend.

Usual beach habit here is that while men usually walk nude between their apartments and the beach, ladies will throw on a pareo for the walk. I often do the same.

In 40 degrees of heat, with media reporting even Spaniards collapsing in the streets due to heat stroke/exhaustion, what hope for us northern Europeans?

Sylvia and I stepped out of the apartment this morning for a walk on the beach, but as soon as I stepped into the sun at street level it felt like a mistake! So I took it off and left it sitting on the apartment’s steps, for collection on our return. Due to the exceptional heat at that time of day, we also abandoned the direct sunlight the beach would have provided, and instead we walked around the entire zona naturista, something I’ve never done before nude. A street here, a street there, yes, while going to friends’ apartments, etc, but not the entire zone.

We didn’t start a trend, although it seems to be today’s trend. Even a pareo feels sticky and uncomfortable. We’ve not seen a single item of clothing in our apartment block today.

This is proper naturist life. We’ve reached a point where it feels that clothing has been banned. And it feels wonderful.

Ella

Today is World Naturist Day.

Naturally I couldn’t let it pass without doing my bit! 😉

Ella

With almost guaranteed good weather, some people like to cook outdoors. I don’t mean just a barbecue, I’m talking about proper cooking hobs they’ll cook with, not just incinerate meat 🙂

Thus it was when we were talking to neighbours. Spills and splashes, along with nudity, are not a good mix, so one of the ladies I know was working at her outdoors kitchen wearing an apron. Sensible lady!

Which reminded me…

Plausible Body have a wide range of outfits available, and they work on the basis of ‘open price’ -essentially pay what you wish for a range of clothing. The apron I’m wearing is from their ‘French Maid’ outfit.

I then dashed over to Depoz, which has a range of kitchens (and bathrooms, and bedrooms, and lounges) set out for you to see how they might best fit your home. Some of the equipment has poses so you can actually looks as if you’re cooking, eating, etc.

Careful with that naturist cooking! There are tender places that are best not exposed to splashes and burns.

Ella

Sorry. On Spanish expeditions I usually try to do a few SL related posts and reflect what I’ve seen in RL naturism. The simple truth is I’m having a whale of a time and not really getting into SL.

The thing is…if Sylvia takes photos of me from afar, and demands I upload some of them, then it’s only fair it works in reverse. Yes? So here she is by the pool. Keen eyed avatar watchers will have observed that her tattoo is on the other side of her tummy to that which I added to her avatar, but it’s Second Life, it’s a compromise, and that there’s some evidence of (as I said earlier in the week) ‘five o’clock shadow’ 😉

We’ve just been swimming. It’s midnight. It’s warm. It’s wonderful.

Ella.

Hot, hot, hot, so your editor is in the pool rather than playing SL! 🙂 Sylvia took the photos. She was waving at me, she says, but without my glasses I’m as blind as a bat. 🙂

Ella

Being pale northern Europeans, prone to burn under fierce sun, my routine is to take it slowly. Yes, it’s counter-intuitive to fly all this way for the sun, then keep out of it, but it’s important not to damage the skin, so I tend to take a ‘two days on, 1 day off’ approach to the beginning of each holiday. Of course it’s impossible to completely refrain from being exposed to it, but today has been the day where the swimming pool has been our exposure to it, in short bursts, and then mostly in the shade thereafter.

It’s also the day when I find that the excitement of a holiday finally catches up with me. There’s a sea to swim in, pools to enjoy, beaches to walk, all as nature intended, and it’s a case of pushing things. Day three is the great collapse…a couple of late nights…too much to drink 😉 …the sapping heat of the sun… so it’s the day of rest and recovery.

I did venture onto the terrace where I did spot a mature woman, maybe around 50 years of age and in perfect shape, in the urbanisation next door, doing a yoga routine on the grass. It was a sublime scene. A communion with nature, in nature. Perfect.

This is why I’m a naturist. In harmony with the world around us, like so many others who enjoy the lifestyle.

Ella