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THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT
WITH ALL THE TALK OF THE PAST AND THE FUTURE IN THIS ISSUE, you might be inclined to believe that some kind of logical space- time continuity applies to the experience of going diving.
Wrong! Scientists searching for a wormhole in the fabric of the cosmos to transport matter randomly through time need look no further than the Devon end of the M5.
Remember E=MC²? Well, relative to the amount of time you don’t have, M5=JAM. The resulting energy (E) builds up to the point where meltdown (M) occurs as you get stuck behind C².
I don’t really like to use the C-word lightly, because it generally causes offence, but on this occasion I feel it’s warranted - Caravans.
Einstein is a lot easier to comprehend than the mentality of adult human beings who spend entire weekends towing over-sized sardine cans up and down the M5 for a laugh. Just when you think life couldn’t get any crazier, you turn off the A38 and enter a bizarre parallel universe.
You might think you’re in perfect English chocolate-box cover country, but actually you’ve slipped into a Dali canvas. You pull into a garage and try to make a simple purchase in, say, less than 90 minutes, and you can witness the clock running away into liquid slime.
Pubs stop serving lunch at 1.3Opm on a Sunday because, apparently, after that hour the chef's head inexplicably sprouts an iris. For a place dependent on tourist spending, the unrelenting determination to turn paying customers away is simply beyond rationality.
I’m diving from Salcombe, with Pat Dean, white-haired Time Lord of the British dive scene. He may look as cuddly as a grandad in his faded fisherman’s smock top, but don’t be fooled. He can shift from charming to snarling in a nanosecond and his tongue holds the power to transform you from adult to naughty child.
His knowledge is infinite, his boat Lodesman is Tardis-like, his toilet is prehistoric and his boat ladder is a gladiatorial trial. When he says jump, you go. And when you go, you slip into a different dimension.
The wreck is spread out before me like a filleted mackerel, bow and stern intact with the midships opened up. The viz is a phenomenal 30m. The fish are more of a gang than a shoal - fearless, gargantuan beasts, swimming up and eyeballing me with Nigel Benn-style attitude. My heart is singing with excitement at the wild beauty of it all as I fin along.
I’m sure I’ve been down here only for the blink of an eye, but my computer is telling me 20 minutes. I spot a diver coming over the wreck, making a beeline towards me. His eyes crinkle with mischief as he hands me a package retrieved from inside the wreck. I look down at the whitish square in my hands and it reads "Pampers Baby-Dry".
My mask starts to fill with water and I have to put the nappies down to pull myself together. How? Where? Why?
My nappy encounter has a similar result to that of a six-year-old being asked by the teacher if you’re sure you’ve been to the toilet before setting off on a school trip.l didn’t feel the need to go before, but now that it’s been brought to my attention...
Have you ever noticed how time magically slows down on your decompression stops? It actually appears to run backwards when all you can think about is how much you’re bursting for a wee.
Back on the boat, I’m explaining to fellow-diver Steve Brown that Salcombe is the only place in the UK to have retained capital punishment for parking offences - and that the apparent normality of Devon is but a thin façade for a living experiment in chaos theory.
"Oh, shut up, you love it," he says. Bizarrely, inexplicably, he is absolutely right.
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