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USED AND ABUSED
LIKE MANY OTHER BSAC MEMBERS, I WAS PERPLEXED when faced with the proposition of signing a declaration that I would not be abusing any children while carrying out my branch responsibilities.
It conjured up Dickensian-style images of kids lined up, shivering, at the poolside, with me yelling: "OK, shrimp, you've failed your snorkelling test, now get up that chimney and sweep!"
In my experience, if there's abuse to be dished out, it will be me on the receiving end. The prospect of being dive-bombed by screaming eight-year-olds while demonstrating how to extract the fin strap that little Kylie just rammed up my left nostril is not my idea of fun.
These Bubblemaker and Scuba Ranger initiatives are simply a sadistic plot to undermine the fundamentally adult nature of a sport which requires dedicated participants to spend long hours debriefing in pubs.
I say, make the parents sign a declaration that their kids will refrain from tormenting the adults and keep well away.
Come to think of it, we should get trainees to sign a declaration too, because when it comes to questionable behaviour, it's generally the instructor who comes off worse.
Panic can induce all kinds of bad manners. Anyone who has had their mask battered, their reg ripped out and their head used as a stepping-stone by a frenzied trainee clawing a path back onto the RIB will know what I mean. Is that the contents of your stomach on my hood? Or were you just pleased to see me?
So my interest was aroused when I heard three blokes discussing their first open-water experiences in graphic detail. One had a very saucy tale to tell; apparently his female instructor just couldn't keep her hands off him. I leaned my bar stool strategically closer to catch all the details, when it became apparent that he was talking about me!
The dive in question had been on the Dredger, nestling in all of 6m outside the breakwater of Portland Harbour.
"Before we'd even got in the water, she was getting all touchy-feely," he said. This bloke had a sticky-out stomach but no waist and no hips, so getting his weightbelt to stay in position had required some fairly assertive intervention.
"She had me spread-eagled on the wreck, and was groping my arse." As we started to descend and his suit compressed, the weightbelt started shimmying down his thighs and was hanging off his knees. He was toppling over backwards, so I got him to hold onto the wreck with both hands, while I got behind him and pushed the weightbelt back over his buttocks.
"Then she was trying to hump me from behind!" I had to reach around his waist to grab the loose end of the belt and retightened it with a series of sharp tugs. Dignified? Not. But marginally preferable to watching him launched to the surface like a Pershing missile.
"She wouldn't let go of my hand." He was still having a problem staying in the correct position, and finning seemed an alien activity. I was concerned that he was going to topple over onto his back, so I took his hand and did the swimming for us both while pointing out the copious marine life: "Look - spider crab! Piece of seaweed! Sweet wrapper!"
"Next thing I knew, she had me squeezed between her thighs!" I let go of his hand to signal that we should ascend. His arms started flailing, and whoops! he was heading backwards again. I grabbed his BC strap and hauled, but his determination to go belly-up was such that I had to wrap my legs round him as I performed a controlled buoyant lift.
"Then she says: Was it good for you too?!"
Honest, guv, it was totally innocent.
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