Plenty to write about before we even left the club this week. One trailer wheel hub needed some repair so some magic was worked with a collection of washers. One other hub was out of shape and leaking air so also needed fixing. This was a delicate operation involving the subtle application of a large hammer. One other wheel was leaking air through its valve so was replaced with a spare that turned out to be punctured so was itself replaced. Are you following all this? Oh and the boat’s right engine wouldn’t start because of a broken earth cable. Mike was exhausted afterwards but rose to the various challenges.
After all that the diving might seem a bit anti-climatic. The original intention was to do the Jumbo and Neptune but the sea state was rougher than advertised so we did the dhows instead. The baby barracuda are still on Karen’s dhow and the Bigprop was full of life as normal. Quote of the day (possibly the year) was from Cathy who – getting her units mixed up – told everyone that she was diving with a “12 inch steel”. The mind boggles.
To finish a case of déjà vu. Some of you may remember a dive several years ago when we were accosted by the coastguard and invited to display a dive flag that we didn’t have. To solve the problem some improvisation was done with a blue fin and a white T-shirt. The result was extremely dubious (to be charitable) but the DIY dive flag (now referred to as a “Pete Elvin”) has entered 406 legend. So imagine my surprise when I went to put up a dive flag last Friday and found that thanks to Mike Anthony I didn’t have to.