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It was a very Australian way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli: 100 surf life saving boats landed on Collaroy Beach, rowed by 600 lifesavers wearing the finest budgie smugglers and zinc cream.
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"Where else in the world?" asked Judy Hinkley of St Ives who had arrived at 10.30 am for the 100 Years 100 Boats commemoration organised by South Curl Curl Surf Life Saving Club that attracted around 10,000 spectators.
On the beach, students from 100 schools from all over NSW waited in the noon heat to hand over home-made wreaths that were rowed out to sea by the lifesavers from Australia, New Zealand and Turkey, at the end of the two hour ceremony on Saturday.
A Turkish Australian, Can Erdogan, was a first-time rower, who was the first to land on the beach on Saturday. He was coached for two months by South Curl Curl Life Saving Club's veteran members, Billy Good and Chris Flemming.
"It is great to remember suffering on both sides, " said Mr Erdogan. "Yes, Australia lost a lot of soldiers at Gallipoli, but Turkey lost a lot of soldiers, too, about 90,000 overall. My great-grandfather was injured," he said.
Arriving in a wave of lifesaving boats was an "awesome experience," said 36-year-old Michael Keating, of Allambie Heights. He rowed for North Narrabeen SLC.
"It was weird sitting out there thinking what they would have gone through, hearing machinegun fire, how tough it would have been, how scary it would have been," he said.
The arrival on Collaroy beach in Sydney's north had been designed to coincide with the dawn service at Anzac Cove.
Commodore Lee Goddard, of the Royal Australian Navy, had wandered through the crowd picking out the 18- and 19-year-olds, and reminding them what their generation endured 100 years ago.
"You talk like them, you act like them, and you are as brave as them," he said to the young men and women on the beach of Collaroy.
Being an oarsman at Gallipoli was the "most dangerous position on the boat," said Commodore Goddard.
One of Australia's best oarsman in 1915, Tom White, volunteered to row one the first boats carrying Diggers into Anzac Cove. He was joking and laughing, his mates later said, but slumped as they arrived. He was seriously injured as the boat pulled into shore, and didn't live to fire his gun.
As the ceremony wrapped up, the master of ceremonies recounted an anecdote from Gallipoli.
A young injured soldier, who was being tended by a medic, asked: "Do you think anyone will remember us?"
"100 years on, we've done just that," the MC said, choking back tears.
The boats pulled out so quietly the crowd barely noticed their departure, a tribute to the silence shown by the Anzacs when they withdrew from Gallipoli in complete silence.
With oars upright as a mark of respect, the lifesavers dropped wreaths made by children into the water.
While the last verse of the national anthem faded away, the wreaths bobbed back to the beach, carefully avoided by a kayaker and a boogie board rider who surfed nearby.
It was too beautiful a day to miss a wave.
A little way down the coast, a young boy stole the show at Harbord Public School.
Ninety-five-year-old Barney Greatrex loves his chooks and watching rugby, but 71-years ago he was doing something very different, his 11-year-old great nephew and namesake Barney told a huge crowd at Freshwater's Anzac Day service.
Showing no signs of the nerves that had made his little knees shake before the service began, young Barney Brownlow said his great uncle was the only survivor when a Lancaster plane was shot down over enemy-occupied France during World War II.
"Uncle Barney was the bomb aimer," said young Barney. "And he was the only one who managed to parachute to safety. He [Barney Greatrex] pushed out the escape hatch and jumped into the night sky."
With young Barney a hard act to follow, Premier Mike Baird delivered a moving tribute.