DANTE - This is one of my more insane
adventures, I think probably because it was something to do with Rik and I being in the same boat (literally).
The Freshwater Incident:
USUAL
SUSPECTS INVOLVED :
LOCATION : Bits of the Isle of Wight
WRITING SUSPECT: Dante
DANTE - This is one of my more insane
adventures, I think probably because it was something to do with Rik and I being in the same boat (literally).
It all began when my sister, my father and I gained an unexpected crewmate for our trip to the Isle of Wight (Rik had just returned from Romania and was bored. He conned my father into taking him on our boat in the pub the night before we left). The voyage to the island was fairly uneventful. The real fun started when the two of us decided to take a short 10 minute row around Yarmouth Harbour in the inflatable dinghy. Bad move!
As we would only be 10 minutes Rik decided to leave his shoes to dry on the boat. We had got about 5 minutes up the river from when I received a text from my then girlfriend Kai, who was staying in Freshwater. I decided it would be a good idea to go and visit her. I'd been told that Freshwater was at the source the River Yar and we were currently rowing up......you guessed it?
Despite the fact Rik's surrealism sense was tingling, I decided we were going to row to Freshwater. By the time we got to the end of the small craft moorings at Yarmouth we figured we should ask some directions, so, because he seemed an expert in all things aquatic, we asked a guy who was swimming near the back of his boat. His response when asked "Which way to Freshwater?" showed signs that we were attempting something that most people would class as "bloody stupid", from memory "You're going to row all the way there?! In that thing?!??!!" were his words. He then vanished bubbling. On reflection we probably should have thought about this more carefully. We decided to go on anyway.
Looking back we were lucky to actually manage to get to freshwater so easily. When we finally arrived at the bridge that marks Freshwater, moored the dinghy to a convenient fencepost, and got out, 2 hours had gone by since we had left for our "10 minute row".
The first people we saw were a group of very cultured looking elderly ladies, who hadn't got here by anything as vulgar as hiking, but had decided to take cars and "enjoy the view". We decided that we should ask them for directions, but hadn't got a word out when one of them volunteered the location of the nearest pub! I'm sure it would have been insulting if she wasn't so right in her assessment of us.
So we set out down a horrifyingly Beatrix Potter style road, that could just have easily been the set for The Shire from Lord Of The Rings. Please remember that Rik has no shoes. We eventually reached a Co-op supermarket, having discovered that the pub closed at 3pm, and bought a simple Wildcard style lunch of chocolate and baked goods from therein.
As we sat around outside the shop eating this, we remembered the actual reason we had come here in the first place, to visit Kai. So I rang her mobile and asked where in Freshwater she was, and how we could get there.
Upon receiving the reply "I'm
not in Freshwater anymore, I'm at
Colwell Bay" I was understandably a
little upset "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU AREN'T IN FRESHWATER ANYMORE?!?!?!"
(Rik looked like he was going to do something desperate).
We eventually got directions from a twelve year old girl who had been left in
charge of an off licence. (We decided not to ask). She told us that to get to Colwell bay, all we had to
do was take a left, walk for about a mile down that
road, and then follow......Wait for it.... the half mile gravel path. This is where I believe
Rik lost any calmness he may have somehow retained until that point,
and started plotting my murder.
So we set off, down the road until we reached this gravel path. Walking down the gravel path resulted in about 10 minutes worth of unprintable obscenity from Rik, and I admit, quite a lot of laughter from myself.
But after the path we finally reached Colwell bay, and found Kai which gave us, at least, a sense of fulfilled purpose. Having let her laugh at us (Why does everyone do this?), we wandered over to one of the nearby shops, to return Rik to a state of mind where he was safe to put near the rest of Kai's family, small children included. We bought him a pair of wet shoes.
This would have been fine, had we bought them from a different stall, but no, not us, we bought this particular pair of wet shoes from the stall with the bored sarcastic shop keeper. He managed to put sarcastic spin on everything we said. Such is our luck.
We headed down along the gravel beach (Thank god Rik had his shoes now, or I think he might have cried at this point) to find Kai's family. This is where things got really interesting. (This was Rik's first encounter with Shandy!) I wont explain in too much detail, but lets just say that for the next few hours, we walked around a lot more places, and were insulted quite a lot, then idolised by the 2 younger sisters of "Kai's" then laughed at some more. (As I say on my main page -"I don't look for these people...I just seem to attract them")
It is worth mentioning, that on the shore of the Isle of Wight, about 200 yards from Yarmouth harbour is a large square building on a headland. From this beach we could see the other side about 200 yards from us. It had taken us 4 hours and about 10 miles to move 400 yards. We were not best pleased.
At about 7pm we started to head back to the dinghy, with Kai and family, who had insisted on coming with us. On reflection I'm really glad they did or we would have, been totally screwed. We did stop at a pub on the way back to the dinghy, where I proceeded to spend the last of my £55 we had come out with on drinks for everyone ('cos I'm stupid). (Rik - Are you going on record with that?)
We then went on to go down the Beatrix potter road (again) that led to the dinghy. As we were rounding the last bend, all of life came to a stop. What is the most important thing to remember about a river? It's tidal! It had gone about 20 metres out from where we had moored the dingy, and was now separated from the dinghy sucking mud and quicksand. It was now that Kai's mother said something that pretty much defines Rik's and my existence. She said "I don't understand how you 2 cope, everything that can go wrong happens to you, and you just go, "oh well", and move on. Is your life always like this?" (Rik - Is that a trick question?)
So anyway, we have now got the dinghy out of the mud, and onto the road. Thankfully, Kai's father offered to give us and the dinghy a lift back to Yarmouth, so we had a way back. Unfortunately, this meant deflating the dinghy and getting it back to the pub. Deflating it was not a problem. Moving the deflated dinghy to the pub was however, a little more challenging. After Rik and Kai had tried for about 20 minutes to use the oars at handles by balancing the dinghy between them I got a little annoyed about the fact we'd hardly got around the 1st bend, so proceeded to grab the dinghy, lift it on one shoulder and say "come on".
We got back to the pub eventually, where I understandably collapsed. So we brought drinks. Rik - Good thinking Dante, that's what pubs are for. When Kai's father returned, the journey back to Yarmouth took all of 10 minutes maybe, just to make us feel stupid.
When we got back to Yarmouth, we realised a fatal flaw in our plan. To get back to the boat, we needed to cross a large expanse of water. To do that we needed the dinghy! And the dingy was deflated, and the pump was on the boat. So we had to accost the harbour taxi man, who was yet another person who decided to laugh at us.
We finally got back to the boat, having said goodbye to Kai and her father, and found my family, just where we had left them, they seemed more than happy to see us until they discovered the deflated dinghy. Then they seemed more angry to see us, but this was irrelevant at this point. They'd been on the boat 8 hours and the loos...? Were on shore.
And so now you
know what happens when Rik and Dante go rowing.
KIDS, do on try this at home unless you have
special training in surrealism!