Month: August 2021

What a dive!

First Published: 16 November, 2004

The dolphins were skimming along beside us, easily keeping up with our small craft as they surfed on our wake. Three of them, four of them, I wasn’t sure as they seemed to be everywhere at once, disappearing below the surface for minutes at a time before reappearing on the other side of the bow, laughing at their game. Sailors have long considered dolphins to be an omen of good luck and sitting on the roof of the cabin, washed by sun and sea spray, I decided they were proof the next three days would be the fabulous experience I had always imagined it would be. I was, as usual, hopelessly wrong.

I had arrived in Townsville, Australia a few days before and as I had planned many months before while still in Britain, set about signing up for a scuba diving course. Taking a diving course while on the Great Barrier Reef is just something every world traveller does, like getting ripped off in Bangkok, or sick in Jakarta and I was no exception. There were various outfits all offering variations on the theme, but the essential elements were the same. You’d spent a couple of days learning theory in a classroom setting, then putting it into practice in a swimming pool. Then you would board a luxury cruiser to sail some sixty miles off the coast and complete your training on the Barrier Reef itself. It sounded awesome.

The classroom stuff was something of a chore as the weather was hot and close. However, in the afternoons we headed over to the outdoor public pool where we joined the local retirees, each one a charming shade of tobacco, and learned how to enter and exit the water, use the gear correctly and practice rescue operations. It was easy enough even for Ryan, a Canadian guy who’d signed up for the course, completed the compulsory medical and passed all the other required tests without revealing that he couldn’t swim. We were pumped, we were ready; it was time – bring on the open sea.

Bright and ugly the next morning, we met at the dock where we were not really surprised to learn that our home for the next 3 days was not the luxury cruiser portrayed on the brochures, but a tiny, rusting tub. We had barely left harbour when the sea began to pick up and my classmates who had chosen to retire below decks were already experiencing the joys of mal-de-mer. I, on the other hand, was atop the cabin roof, loving every minute. My happiness lasted right up to the time we arrived at the dive site, strapped on our gear and began our first dive in open water.

When you scuba dive, you’re equipped with a stubby snorkel so you can swim along the surface with your face submerged, viewing the ocean deep via your facemask. You expel the water from the snorkel with a short, sharp blow, which is easy enough in a swimming pool, but with waves slopping into the tube every few seconds, I was inhaling more water than I was expelling. Sea water in the lungs doesn’t assist in aerobic activity and even with flippers, swimming against this current was disturbingly difficult. With each expedition, I was becoming feeling increasingly tired, nauseous and feverish.

Below the surface, things were much pleasanter even though the visibility was only about one quarter what we should have enjoyed. Many of the psychedelic fish and brilliantly coloured coral were lost in the murk. Some of us saw a shark, others saw a turtle and we all saw a sea cucumber which is a remarkably dull looking creature, something like a gherkin. If we’d spent the whole dive course diving, I would have been a lot happier. Sadly, for the first two days, we were still in training, which meant the bulk of our time was spent on the surface. Fighting the waves, fighting the current, fighting fatigue and inhaling water. It was horrible.

There were arguments, such as when one diver “borrowed” the prescription glass mask of another without asking; reprimands, such as when two Swiss boys surfaced some two hundred yards off target during a compass navigation section and a near drowning when yours truly was swept away by the current while wrestling with his buoyancy belt buckle which had a lead weight jammed hard against it.

Each dive was more of an ordeal than the last and I’m convinced I lowered the level of the Pacific Ocean a good 2 or 3 inches due to my intake of saltwater. Finally, the training was complete, and we were free to dive on our own, without an instructor to hold our hands. Only problem was with the storm showing signs of increasing violence, none of us had any real desire to enter the water.

Eventually our captain announced that qualified divers or no, our voyage was over, and we were heading for home. Nobody was particularly sorry about that, but the bad news was, there would be no riding on the roof of the cabin this time. Due to the severity of the weather, we were all sentenced to spend the return journey below decks in our bunks. I’d been assigned a berth at the sharp end, positively the worst place to be in inclement weather.

If I had thought trying to sleep at night had been rough, it was nothing compared to the rodeo ride of the return trip. For seven hours we bounced, we bucked, we dipped, and we dived as my stomach did summersaults and my throat was rasped raw by the diesel fumes. Distinctly below par before we started, by the time we finally made port I was battered, bruised and never happier to reach terra-firma.

We’d all made plans to meet up in a local bar for a post-course celebration. I’m not sure how many of the team made it; I certainly didn’t. In fact, it was all I could do to totter home from the docks to my hostel and once there, even a simple task like lying on my bed proved to be quite demanding. It was a good week before I felt healthy again and despite the intervening years, I’ve never felt any real urge to try scuba diving again.

Still, I can at least claim I’ve dived on the Great Barrier Reef and when people exclaim “Wow! I bet that was an experience.” I can smile enigmatically and reply “Yes. Yes, it was.”

Swan Song

First published: 9 November, 2004

As he did with most fads, my friend Steve jumped on the windsurfing craze pretty early. The sport was largely unknown and the technology very much in its infancy when he dropped a bundle of cash on an enormous polyurethane plank-like boat and an item of apparel known euphemistically as a “dry suit”. This was a somewhat kinky looking rubber outfit rendered completely waterproof by seals at the cuffs and neck, allowing the sportsman to stay warm by wearing street clothes underneath. “Come on” he told me, “you’ve got to try this!” Always on the lookout for something new and different, and assuming (wrongly as it turned out) that this wouldn’t take long and we’d soon be snug in a pub somewhere, I cheerfully tagged along. For reasons that escape me now, we decided to make our debut not in some secluded cove, where we could make idiots of ourselves in private, but in Bowness Bay. This is a scenic, but overcrowded stretch of English lakefront which, on this warm summer evening, was swarming with tourists.

In the years to come, Steve became something of an expert in the sport of windsurfing; competing on a national level and even receiving small but welcome gifts of sponsorship. However as I said, this was in the early days and he really didn’t have much of a clue. Once the initial requirements of sailboard, clothing and roof rack have been met, windsurfing is a comparatively accessory free sport. However, there is one prerequisite without which it’s almost impossible to enjoy the game to its fullest. That is of course, wind. And it was conspicuous by its absence on our first night.

Or at least it was by the time my turn came around. Steve had drifted gently out into the centre of the lake before turning ponderously and making his way back. I did OK on the outward journey, but around the time I tried to return to port, the breeze, never exactly gale force to begin with, dropped completely and I found myself becalmed some two hundred yards from shore. It was a mild night and clad as I was in the above mentioned dry-suit, I opted to swim for shore, towing the extremely cumbersome sailboard behind me. That was a whole lot harder than it sounds and while I made it back eventually, it ate into our valuable drinking time. Lesson learned there.

Next time out, we planned ahead. “I’ve bought four lengths of clothesline” Steve told me. “We’ll tie it to the front of the board and if one of us gets stuck, the other can simply tow him back in”. Capital idea that, so after securely fastening the rope to the bow (see, I’ve got these nautical expressions down), I sailed with confidence off into the wild blue yonder. The plan worked splendidly for oh, a good three or four minutes before my progress was suddenly halted by a violent jerk from behind. Naturally I went straight in the water and on surfacing saw that I hadn’t, as I had first thought, been attacked by some kind of lake dwelling shark, but something far worse. A large and very powerful swan was thrashing violently having become entangled in the clothesline. And he looked pretty pissed off about it.

There are a number of reasons why one should be wary around swans. To begin with, there’s the technicality than in Britain at least; every one of them is the property of Her Majesty the Queen. I doubt she herself knows exactly how many she owns and would be unlikely to miss one, but even so, causing harm to the Queen’s property isn’t a good way to ascend the social ladder.

A far more important piece of trivia is that a full-grown swan can flap its wings with enough strength to break a human arm. And boy, was this one flapping its wings. I’m guessing it wasn’t the brightest swan in the pond because it seemed to be missing the fairly obvious point that the more it fought, the further entangled it became. The clothesline was now wound around the poor beast in a manner that suggested someone had done a poor job of wrapping it before dropping it in the post. Although the water was shallow enough to allow me to stand, my cautious attempts to approach the bird only caused it to begin thrashing again, making the position ever worse. The problem was indeed a thorny one.

A fairly large crowd had gathered on the shore by this time; enjoying my discomfiture tremendously, while at the same time, pretending to care about the poor swan I was currently abusing. Many people took the time to remind me of the severe penalties for harming a swan, despite the fact that nobody knows what those actually are. A number of them seemed to think I was in this situation through choice. I could hear one imbecile yelling, “Fetch the police!” but either everyone ignored him, or Bowness’ finest wisely declined to get involved because they never appeared. Gradually, inch by inch, I made my way towards the bird and with trembling hands, began the tortuous process of untangling it from the snare.

As gently as I could, I lifted its wings and lifted its feet, slowly uncoiling the rope. It would stand calmly for some time but then, just when I was beginning to see progress, its patience would snap and it would fly into paroxysms of rage, flapping and straining in an attempt to escape. I would cower to one side, hoping its enormous wings would avoid making contact and, when it had exhausted itself, would once more begin my laborious task. Steve, shore bound and helpless began polling the bystanders.

“Does anyone have a pocket knife?” I heard him ask.

“I have a lighter” responded one helpful soul.

“I’m trying to free it, not cook it” I muttered, trying to keep my tone soothing.

Finally the brute remained calm long enough for me to complete the job of rescuing it and I almost cried with relief as I uncoiled the last of the rope. Without so much as a “thank you” the swan splashed around for a few moments, then took off into the sky. The whole process had taken every ounce of courage I possessed but when I turned around, it was to a horror of which I’d been blissfully unaware. Sitting in a semi-circle just a few feet behind me and watching every move I made, were six more swans. They weren’t exactly swinging baseball bats or flashing knives, but their intent was the same.

“One false step from you matey and you’re swan food!”

We never windsurfed in Bowness Bay again.

The Beautiful Game (or not)

First published: 2 November, 2004

Sunday morning. Early Sunday morning. As in, the pubs aren’t even open early Sunday morning. And oh, what I wouldn’t give to be snug in a cosy bar right about now, with a silky smooth pint or six of ale to soothe my wicked hangover. Instead, I’m standing up to my ankles in mud, wearing shorts which display my white, spindly legs in all their goose bumped glory, hugging my hands under my arms as protection against the icy wind and wondering, as I do at this time every Sunday morning, just why in the hell I play football.

As a footnote to American readers, I’m talking about real football here. The kind you play with your feet. No pads, no helmets, no taking a break every 4 seconds. Real football – nothing but you and twenty-one other lost souls on a windswept, waterlogged field chasing a ball the weight of a small car and ninety more minutes before you can slope off, put on some dry clothes and drink lunch in the comfort of a welcoming nearby hostelry.

The professionals of course have hot baths, and masseurs with warming lotions and Super Model girlfriends waiting for them when they retire from the pitch, but for we happy few, we band of brothers playing in Britain’s Sunday Leagues, football is played the hard way, in city parks and country fields, where the groundskeepers often have four legs, and supply us with milk. Out there, braving the elements week after week, dressed in ridiculously inadequate clothing and wondering if this will be the week when you finally succumb to hypothermia. Real football.

To begin with, there are only two types of amateur football pitch. The one where you toss up to see who gets to defend the shallow end and type where you need ropes and crampons to get from one side to the other. Few are entirely covered in grass. Most pay more than a passing resemblance to ploughed fields. Sometimes the pitch markings are discernible; sometimes the goals have real nets. Very occasionally there’s a referee although the accepted protocol is that in the absence of an official league representative, any disputes will be settled by the spectator. He will be a middle aged man with a black and white dog.

The players on each team may have some tenuous link to one another. Perhaps they all work at the same firm, or are regulars at the same pub. Often they’re simply a group of friends who may or may not see each other away from the football field. Rarely however, does an entire team share the attribute of talent. Oh there’s usually one or two skilful players on each side; the ones who score the goals, know the rules and spend most of the game racing from one end of the pitch to the other, doing all the work while rudely bemoaning the lack of enthusiasm among their team mates. But for the most part, Sunday League players are more like me. Guys who aren’t exactly sure what they’re doing there and are fervently wishing they weren’t.

Well, that’s not entirely true. It’s fair to say that the majority of the players are actually putting some effort into the game and genuinely care whether or not they’re on the winning side. Me, I recognised quite early on in my career that the selectors for the international squads were never going to come a-knocking on <i>my</i> door and if I could get through each game without my team mates attempting to kill me, I was quite content.

Possibly this was the reason I drifted towards the goal keeper’s position (it certainly wasn’t from any aptitude for the role). Rather than spending my morning racing frantically and hopelessly after the ball, I was able to contemplate the higher aspects of life. Just how much did I have to drink last night? How did I manage to spend that much money? What <i>was</i> that girl’s name and how big a fool did I make of myself? While my teammates huffed and puffed around the field, trying not to be sick, I was content to lean against a goal post with my arms folded, stirring every once in a while to flail hopelessly at the ball as it whizzed past my head. Picking it out of the net every few minutes was plenty exercise for me, thank you very much.

Some days, I didn’t even have to do that very often. If we happened to be playing a team even more inept than us, there were games when I’d hardly let in a single goal. Of course, having made my goalkeeping debut in a game where we lost 26-0, pretty much any occasion where I kept the score against to single figures, was something of a moral victory on my part.

There were times, on particularly frigid days; when bending to pick the ball out of the net wasn’t really enough to keep the blood circulating and a little more action would have been welcome. Looking back, it’s a wonder I never thought to take a hip flask onto the field with me, but as this was during my time as a nicotine user, I did occasionally sneak a quiet smoke while my teammates did battle at the far end. It was this flaunting of the rules which caused me to be sent off for the one and only time in my career. I’d just lit up when against the run of play; the opposition launched an attack on my goal. They hadn’t troubled me all day and, not expecting them to make it all the way to my end, I continued my leisurely appreciation of the fine weed until they were dangerously close. Before I knew it, the goalmouth was crowded with action and it was only my lightning reflexes which allowed me to fling my still lit cigarette off to one side before someone got hurt. Sadly, this referee was less myopic than usual and saw me do it. Off I went, my replacement failed to prevent the subsequent (and completely unjustified) penalty kick and we lost by the only goal of the match.

I suppose we must have won some of the games in which I played, but I can’t say I recall any. There must have been some good memories too, but none immediately spring to mind. Just a lot of cold, wet mornings battling the elements while more intelligent folk were snug in bed nursing their hangovers

But that’s Sunday football and is why I loved it.