Crescent Beach visitors have been seeing pink this past week, and they’ll have a chance to see even more in the days ahead.

A large granite boulder – dubbed Crescent Rock by an organization that hopes to establish a provincially sanctioned nude area at the site – now resembles a large piece of bubblegum, thanks to a vandal who covered it in a coat of bright pink paint sometime on the evening of June 30.

Don Pitcairn, whose group Surrey United Naturists (SUN) will participate this weekend in a North America-wide attempt to set a world record for mass skinnydipping, said he discovered the rock’s new colour scheme on the morning of Canada Day.

Pitcairn first reacted angrily to the paint job Thursday, calling it a “safety threat” and calling for the City of Surrey to return the estimated 120-tonne rock to its natural state. However, by the end of the week, Pitcairn said he was more philosophical about the vandalism.

“I was pretty miffed when I first discovered it, (but) people are going to do what people are going to do,” Pitcairn said.

“If somebody got two gallons of tinted paint, and spent all that energy and initiative to go down and do it, what’s to stop them doing it again?”

Asked if it’s likely one of SUN’s supporters painted the rock to gain publicity for the upcoming world-record attempt, Pitcairn said, “If it is, I don’t know anything about it.”

Saturday’s high-noon event – to be held simultaneously in South Surrey, at Vancouver’s Wreck Beach and at clothing-optional beaches in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico – is in reaction to Guinness World Records establishing a new category for the largest number of people skinnydipping at one time.

The effort is sanctioned by the American Association for Nude Recreation as part of Nude Recreation Week celebrations. Officials will be on hand to record the number of nude bathers, a necessary provision for applying for Guinness World Record status, Pitcairn said.

Local festivities include a planned “mass-mooning” of the Amtrak passenger train at 10:30 a.m. under the banner of “BNSF – Butt Out Of The Beach.” (SUN’s efforts last year to protest the passenger train attracted five participants ‘dropping trou’).

Other suggested – and less political – activities for what SUN has designated as Crescent Rock Beach Day include kite flying, skim boarding, body painting and building sandcastles, with or without clothing.

“Naturism doesn’t exclude anybody,” Pitcairn noted.

Pitcairn said the area he wants the provincial government to designate clothing optional is south of the now-pink boulder, and out of sight from Crescent Beach’s family-friendly area.

He said he wants the area signed as such, to warn passersby, noting that the rocky terrain doesn’t make the area inviting to most beachgoers.

Pitcairn said the area in question – which he dubs Crescent Rock Beach – has a 60-year history of public nudity, since the late ‘40s.

In 2006, after a hand-painted rock and several signs directed beachgoers to a “nude beach” between 101 Steps and 1,001 Steps, Mayor Dianne Watts received a complaint from residents and voiced disapproval, initiating a storm of public debate that eventually subsided.

MLA Gordon Hogg, who was contacted by Pitcairn for help in determining the jurisdiction of the area, said he’d found out it is a wildlife management area, which places it under the purview of the Ministry of Environment, and suggested Pitcairn pursue the matter there.

But Hogg said that in all his years of growing up and living on the Peninsula, he had not been aware of the Crescent Rock area being used as a nudist or clothing-optional area.

He said in his memory and in the memory of other long-time residents, the area had been used by families.

“Having it designated as clothing optional would take away from family use, and there would have to be a lot of meetings and a lot of agreement before something like that could happen,” he cautioned.

As for the new hue of the boulder, Pitcairn said the pink coating appears to be like house paint, which would be difficult to remove from the granite surface.

He vowed to try to remove paint from smaller surrounding rocks with a non-toxic graffiti remover, and would make enquiries at local paint stores to see if he could track down the paint used – which might help in facilitating its removal.

Pitcairn, who said the mystery colourist left two paint can lids and a paint tray behind, added that theories abound about the reason for the surreptitious daubing. He had earlier speculated it was a grad prank.

“I’d love to know who was behind it and what their thought process was,” he said.

“Fortunately, I can’t fathom it.”