09/06/2026
Imagine walking past a toilet block and hearing a burst of laughter echoing from inside, the kind of laughter that's impossible to ignore, contagious and full of life.
Most Saturday mornings that's where you'll find Chris and her friends.
“There’s a lot of bums and b***s and bellies all bouncing off each other as we lift each other around," Chris says.
As they slip into their bathers, they help hoist Chris from her wheelchair into an all-terrain beach chair.
Together, they make their way down to the shoreline before gently easing Chris into the ocean like a seal sliding from a rock into the sea.
“I just do what I want to do, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” Chris says.
"I think there’s something about being in the ocean that just changes the way you feel about yourself and the world."
The ocean has always had a strong pull for Chris.
Growing up along the Midwest coast, the sea was part of her Geraldton lifestyle.
But after a horse-riding accident in her youth left her with a spinal cord injury and permanently using a wheelchair, the ocean began to feel out of reach.
The logistics were difficult, and for a long time it seemed like a place she could look at, but not truly enter.
“As an adult, I’ve re-found the joy of being in the ocean, through having more access to adaptive equipment and friends that are willing to help,” Chris says.
“I didn’t feel any difference to the person I was before my accident, and so I couldn’t understand how the world saw me or expected me to be different.”
Now 61, Chris says she has reconnected with the ocean and the freedom it brings over the past 10 to 15 years.
Chris says her wheelchair is a wonderful tool that gives her freedom on land.
But in the ocean, she discovers a different kind of freedom altogether.
“I can use my arms to pull myself around, I can dive under and just feel a sense of freedom that sitting in a chair on land doesn’t give you.”
Alongside her swimming mates, Levah and Michelle, the trio sometimes swim up to 1.5 kilometres. Other days, they simply bob about in the water, talking, laughing and soaking up the moment.
“We all live such different lives when we’re not swimming, but we’re so connected by the ocean, that it’s our little unique bond and it’s just a beautiful friendship based around being in the water together which we love."
As the morning unfolds, the laughter that began in the toilet block drifts out across the bay.
Three friends, suspended between sea and sky, sharing something much bigger than a swim - freedom, friendship and the simple joy of being exactly where they belong.
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