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ANYONE FOR ARCTIC ROLL?
THE DIVE BOAT IS EDGING TOWARDS THE SHOTLINE. As I wait for the signal to jump, I glance up at the snow-capped mountains framed by a clear blue sky. The green waters of Narvik fjord are a breath-snatching 7°C but you can't fault the views, either above or below the surface. No wonder Slartibartfast won an award for designing Norway, it's gorgeous.
Despite my hefty gloves, I know that in about 35 minutes I'll feel as if someone is jabbing needles into my fingertips. For the same price, I could have spent a week basking in the Maldives. Am I crazy?
I had never dived inside the Arctic Circle before and, let's face it, a life without adventure is a bit like spotted dick without the spots: bland, and pretty much pointless. I do like to think of myself as an up-for-it, adventurous type. So the luxury, warmwater diving trips can wait until I'm too decrepit to do anything else. Like Bantin.
I hover momentarily in a huge jagged rift between the darkness of a cargo hold and an area resembling the crashed spaceship in the first Alien film. The water is just 5°C down here but it is sensational.
It's one of those head-spinning moments that non-divers strive desperately to experience: snatching a brief moment of weightlessness by paying to plunge earthwards in a space shuttle, or strapping themselves into a neck-wrenching 360¡ roller-coaster ride. All in a quest to defy gravity and escape everyday normality.
"You're here to go diving?" The Norwegian 19-year-old lads speak fantastic English but they're beginning to doubt their grasp of the language. It's gone midnight, but as we're in the Arctic the sun still shines brightly Ð on a large collection of discarded beer-bottles.
We've run into this year's Norwegian National Service intake; scores of 18- and 19-year-old recruits out on a bender. This has to be the strangest dive trip of my life. Do all 19-year-olds look like boy-band members?
Like everybody else, I effectively became invisible to teenagers once I stopped being one. It's ages since I've been this close.
Although they've been drinking for hours, the lads impress us all by switching effortlessly between Norwegian and English. They are pissed, boisterous and physical, but no-one has vomited, passed out, picked a fight or bared their bottom. Terribly un-British.
I'm knocking back a Viking Fjord, identical to Vodka Ice but, this being Norway, three times the price. A Ronan Keating clone seems determined to snog me, but I'm having none of it. He is flawlessly blond and gorgeous but, as I've already told him, I am twice his age.
Ronan leans closer and explains in graphic detail what he'd like to do with me. I'm astonished at his grasp. Of the English language. Stunning.
My head is spinning and I've obviously had far too much Viking Fjord because, scarily, it's beginning to sound like a really good idea. Life is a roller-coaster...
No, no, no hold it right there. Unfortunately I'm still sober enough to realise that now would be a good time to make my escape. While I still have my dignity (and my tonsils) intact.
I believe that I'm open-minded enough to try everything once, but while I'm happy to brave the freezing underwater conditions for a thrill, I find myself drawing the line at cradle-snatching.
Perhaps I'm not quite as adventurous and up-for-it as I like to believe.
I join the other divers walking back through Narvik town to the harbour. Julie, the skipper's partner, is explaining the intricacies of supermarket shopping in Norway, and the sad lack of proper desserts.
"You can buy vacuum-packed reindeer meat, and they've got over 50 varieties of tinned fish, but you just can't get an Arctic Roll," she says.
Well, I'm not sure I'd entirely agree.
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