More Stories from the Sea

Bank Holiday Tuesday. Perfect weather. Rob, Nomis and I hit the water just south of Fossil Cove. An epic 3h dive.

Anyway, I had four trumpeter in my bag pretty early on. I swam under a rock, looking for cray, carrying both my spear and dive bag. Sure enough, there were a couple of crayfish. So I put my dive bag (with my four trumpeter) and my spear on top of the rock and kept diving down to get the cray. Then, on the way up, there was a massive ray coming through. It would have been a couple of metres across, so a wee bit ominous. So I high-tailed out of there and hanged around on the rocks. When I went back to collect my spear and bag, my spear was there, but my bag had disappeared. Assumption is that the ray stole my bag and my four trumpeter.

But on the bright side, I managed to get the cray and an ab. So we had a late lunch of cray, crab, and ab. (Nomis picked up a crab on the way through.)

I'm Jerome, I suffer from PDT.

30degrees at 1am in Kingston. Who'd have thought it? Anyway, it was quite an evening - spent drinking coke and eating chips in front of the box. I blame it all on a case of unusually severe pdt.

Post Dive Trauma is one of the most debilitating conditions known to divers around the globe - short of drowning itself. And, it is usually associated with the start of the dive season or the return after a lengthy lay off. And of course the post dive staple: deep fried food. This condition renders the sufferer slob-like, with barely the ability to change TV channels using the remote control - there's certainly no energy left to press mute during the ad break. What's more, if there was, the victim would be comatose before the show resumed.

Anyway, I managed two dives in a row, and managed to claim a grand total of zero fish. Anyway, the water is far colder already in March than it was at the height of summer. Hopefully I can turn my poor form around this afternoon. Or maybe I've got to stop being so fussy and get some leatherjacket and be willing to make the time investment to clean abalone... but it's tough when you factor in pdt.

Well, I had my touch grand final this morning - that is, Saturday morning at half past ten. It was a tight affair, being level at 3-all at half time, then 7-all at full time. Of course, this was against a team that had had the wood over us all year - they beat us at the start of the season when we had a couple of work-horses missing, and then in the first final, when we played against them with five men and went down 8-1.

As touch finals do, we had to drop a man each at full time, so it was five a side for two minutes. I had spent the majority of the second half on the ground, so I volunteered my services on the pine. Two minutes came and it was time to drop another player, so it was four a side. At that stage, I subbed back in. It's frenetic with four a side, yet nobody managed to score. Another two minutes went by and it was time to drop another player. So it was three a side. One of their players got through, but because he was dummy half, he couldn't score, and had to pass it to a team mate to score. (When a tag is made, there is a roll ball, that is, the person who is tagged must step over the ball, rugby league style. If the person who picked it up is tagged, there is an automatic turn over, rather than having five touches. That person is the "dummy". That person is also not allowed to score.) So I was waiting for the pass back to my opponent, and managed to make the tag, as required. There were a few other runs to and fro, but essentially it blurred into one until Justin got the ball, on the right hand side of the ground after I passed it back to him. I yelled to run it into space, which is what he was going to do anyway. Mark, who has some ridiculous speed, was sitting out on the left wing, ready to recieve the pass from Justin, but the defence peeled off Justin and went to Mark and I, leaving an opening through which Justin was able to belt through and score. So we won!

Southern Touch Mens Division 5 Premiers. Thanks to Uniform City.

There was some gold sledging. If you buy me a beer, I might be able reproduce some of the gems that were on offer. Just remember, "Don't listen to the Golliwog".