Beach Bums - Part 57

 Gisborne, New Zealand

On January 1, 2000, crowds gathered on the beach in Gisborne, New Zealand to watch the sun rise.  What was the big deal?  Gisborne claims to be the easternmost major settlement in the world west of the International Date Line, and this was the first sunrise in the new millennium.

At least one of the new millennium spectators was nude on the beach (above).

An entirely different record was set on the beach in Gisborne on Dec. 30, 2012 by participants in the BW (BayWatch) Summer Festival, a music festival held in Gisborne.  The idea was to set a new Guinness World Record for the number of skinny dippers.  The previous record was 413 people, set in Wales in 2011.

Above, part of a video of participants gathering on the beach.

Then they all ran into the ocean (above).

Above, we see some of them jumping on some kind of trampoline in the water.  But for the official Guinness count, everyone had to be in the water at the same time.

Then everyone ran back onto the shore.

The official count: 506 people, a new Guinness World Record.

However, later in the year 2013, some people in Spain set a new skinny dipping record with 729 people.  So, on Dec. 31, 2013, the BW Summer Festival people tried to recapture the record with another mass skinny dipping event.  Above, waiting on the beach.

Running into the ocean.

Here's part of a video of them running into the ocean, called "Naked Stampede."

After the official count, they ran back onto the beach.  The count: 744 people, a new world record.

Subsequently, other skinny-dippers surpassed Gisborne's record.  The current record was set by 2505 women skinny-dipping in Wicklow, Ireland in 2018.