Underwater.

I’ve never seen scuba-diving as a romantic pastime. You hear scuba divers talking in Jacques Cousteau accents about the beauty beneath the waves, about Neptune’s idyllic garden. One of my brothers used to scuba dive off St. Abbs’ Head on the North Sea Coast and they seemed to spend most of their time stealing lobsters from Fishing pots, trawl netting Scallops and ripping bronze propellers off “wrecks” to be sold for scrap. Sort of rubber clad Gippoes. Before he went in the water, he used to drink gallons of tea, “Don’t you need to go for a pee the minute you get wet?” I once asked. “How do you think we stay warm?” he replied with a twinkle in his eye. The thought of swimming around in a Jacuzzi of your own making didn’t do it for me and I never asked to borrow his wet-suit ever again.

Having moved to Asia, the availability of warmer and cleaner waters provided a more motivational reason to try the sport. We won a week’s scuba course in the Philippines and that clinched it. Off we went to a little thatched cottage on a white sand beach with water that could have come out of a French bottled advert de l’eau, only saltier. Expert tuition was provided by Eduardo who seemed very eager to help my wife into her harness, but less inclined to assist me. This was not exactly a PADI course, and after a quick introduction to the bends and buddy breathing we were off.

I have to admit that at this point all the Cousteau stuff seemed pretty accurate and the reef garden was exquisite. We set off on a guided tour with Eduardo and were suitably gobsmacked by the exquisite corals and fish. Eduardo proved his worth by preventing Dori from stroking a recumbent Stonefish that could have injected sufficient toxins into her skin to cause lung paralysis and death by drowning or caused her to choke to death as her face mask filled with vomit. What a beautiful new world we were entering. I found the face masks a bit freaky, the way that they narrow your field of vision meant that I was constantly jerking my head to right and left just to keep that throbbing Cello theme music out of my imagination.

Actually, I was hearing noises and they were very high pitched and squeaky. As we descended, I kept trying to compensate for the pressure by pinching my nose and blowing as instructed, but it didn’t seem to work very well and the noise in my head became louder and more painful. After our allotted span, we ascended slowly and the pain in my ears began to subside. We broke surface and Eduardo clambered into the boat making sure he gave Dori lots of assistance. I doggy paddled, waiting my turn and pulled the mask from my face, whereupon my nose burst and about 3 pints of blood spouted forth. At this point, Eduardo decided to help me rather than leave me for shark bait and I was hauled out by my shorts before the black fins started circling.

We followed this basic routine for 4 more days, modifying it only by me waiting to get back in the boat before taking off the mask and spraying Shark perfume.

After that we went off to Boracay for a week and chilled on beer and magic mushrooms. Unfortunately 5 days of ingesting seawater through my eardrums resulted in a major ear infection. If I tried to blow my nose it sounded like Krakatoa in my brain, conversations took place in a fog of burbles and blips and when I tried to pick anything up, I would either miss completely or knock it over. Beer drinking became an arduous task. Antibiotics and several weeks were required to get over this.

Imagine then, my enthusiasm several years later, when a trip to the Great Barrier Reef required an obligatory snorkel. Everybody else on the boat was fighting to get over the side the minute we crushed another coral community with our oversized anchor. Whilst I tentatively slipped on the mask and dipped beneath the meniscus, overweight Aussie ladies with enough cellulite to set up a soap factory were frolicking and gamboling like a school of pilot whales. It was okay, I didn’t go very deep and there was some really cool stuff, but nothing like the Philippines. We had lunch on the boat and Bruce took it quite well when I told him we had seen better reef in other Third World Countries.

As we prepared to re-enter the liquid dimension after lunch, Bruce handed me a bread roll, “Here you go sport!”

I assumed that he was intending to have me die from cramps and declined. “Nah Mate”, he said. “ It’s for the fish. Try it!”

So I swam away from the boat with a bread roll in my hand and spotted a bommie where I could stand with my snorkel peeking out from the waves. I broke the soggy roll into bits and was instantly bombarded by a maelstrom of colour. Thousands of small fish appeared from nowhere and thrashed about devouring the bread, so intent that they were banging into my face mask. It was really incredible. Eventually the fun subsided and I decided that I had to do that again. I swam back to the boat, grabbed 3 bread rolls, stuck them down my shorts and scampered back to my bommie.

I shredded another roll and the effect was just the same. I was laughing out loud and choking on seawater as the chaos subsided, only this time it didn’t evaporate, the fish could sense there was more food about and were hanging on for more. It was at this point that I sensed a large dark shape out of the corner of my field of vision. Not enough to get a positive I. D. just enough to scare the living shit out of me. There again! What the fuck was that. The little fish were getting annoying now. Fun’s over! Go away! It struck me that sharks home in on feeding frenzies and maybe these boys had attracted something larger and less friendly. But now they wouldn’t leave me alone and I was a large lunchbox with a homing beacon. Why wouldn’t they just fuck off now?!

I still had 2 bread rolls down my shorts, that’s why!

I pulled out the waistband looking to throw them to the little fish, thereby triggering a diversionary frenzy while I casually legged it in a different direction. Unfortunately the wet bread rolls were enmeshed in my pubes. Wired to my scrotum. I did the only thing I could do and panicked. Desperately I tore at my curlies releasing clouds of pasty bread bits. Thousands of multicoloured reef dwellers span around me. I was the centre of a fish tornado. I couldn’t see a thing except for exploding colours and all the time envisaging huge tearing teeth coming my way. Eventually the psychedelic nimbus began to clear and there it was! The big grey shape swimming slowly but directly at me, just as I had feared.

I closed my eyes; I didn’t want to stare at death.

Nothing happened. I could feel a presence. Hovering. Can you sweat underwater? I must have been exuding gallons of fear pheromones.

I couldn’t stand this toying with me. I half opened an eye. Nothing there.

Slowly I turned my head and there she was! One of the Cellulite ladies, hovering just below the surface. Looking at me; standing on a coral outcrop with my shorts down and small fish nibbling my dick.

Slowly she shook her head, shrugged and then swam away.

I stayed in the water until my skin was all wrinkly and the boat was about to depart. I was very quiet on the ride back to Cairns. Out of the corner of my eye I kept seeing the purple rinsed sharks tutting together and nodding in my general direction.

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