(by
Tim Hunt)
Richard,
Danni, Inger and Me decided, nearly spur of the moment, that enough was enough.
“ Four got pissed-off with English weather”, packed our tooth-brushes and a
few other essentials like some boiled sweets,2 jars of mum’s thick-cut
marmalade and a clean pair of underpants, and, crikey, we were off.
Naana
Bay had never looked prettier and we found rooms at nice Mrs. Abdullahs house
called Sonesta Beach Club only a stone’s skim from the boaty people at Oonas,
where they gave us all the underwater exploring tackle, and took us down to the
rowing-boat called Nidia.
Hundreds
of other chaps from places as far afield as Italy and Russia joined us on the
jetty, and a fair old caper it was getting us all launched and fettled. We all
agreed that Timmy would have loved the salty air and blistering sunshine, but we
had to leave him in the kennels ‘cause the ‘cycle ride from blighty would
have been far too far for him.
Our
nice new friend Ruth took us to a garden quite near to the jetty to make sure we
knew which pipe to put in our mouths. Of course we had this sorted in a trice
and we sunk deep to look at all the flowers and goldfish.
Once we got back in the boat Ruth told us that the flowers were coral and all the pretty fish had exotic names like long-nose hawk-fish and blue-spot stingray! Crikey, we stayed well clear of that one. Ruth got all the names from her Ladybird Guide to Fishes of the Red Sea, and after every dive we were pouring over the pages ticking-off all the new ones like train spotters.
One day we went to a famous place named
after Mohammed’s nose and saw the biggest, scariest eel, much bigger than the
ones Mum buys from the market all covered in jelly. As we swam on Danni had to
take her mask off to clean it ‘cause she thought something was wrong with it
‘cause of all the toilets she could see in front of her. Ruth said later it
was a wrecked ship called Yolanda taking them ablution things to educate the
heathens in proper Western sanitary ways. There was also an area where we saw
lots of clown fish, and proper funny they were darting in and out of the
upside-down jellyfish with lots of tentacles. Richard counted 53 other chaps
enjoying themselves in this small area; a proper little city!
We
next went to another shipwreck called Dunraven; donerovin’ more like, and we
thought we saw some other chaps from our hometown, but that would have been too
weird. Or maybe it was ‘cause we were very deep at 33 yards and you see
strange things ‘cause of them night Trojan?
That
evening we went to a café serving lashings of lovely fresh fish and chips
served by men with strange accents and big moustaches washed down by big jugs of
cola and only costing a few pence. Richard bought a big local scarf, but when he
tried it on all the locals laughed and pointed and shouted “Yosser
Marrowfat”, who ever he might be!
In the Straits of Iran was another
wrecked ship parked on the coral ‘cause the captain was tipsy; golly, these
locals are bad drivers! Ruth said there would be lots of currants in the water
here but all we found, was that we didn’t have to wiggle our flippers and we
still zoomed along at a decent lick; spiffing fun, and lots more fishes to look
at, and even one giant turtle chomping the coral; with his own soup-bowl on his
back.
Seven
days fairly zoomed by, but we had to say bye-bye and shockran to all our new
chums and get back to England for the new term. Back at home we decided not to
tell anyone, except our special friends, what we saw ‘cause they wouldn’t
believe how beautiful it was; maybe we’ll take them with us next time.