The Archive

dodgy boat race

Right, where were we? Ah yes, Dubrovnik, day 2.

It is a well known fact that there are two absolutely essential things to achieve on a holiday and these are:

1. gain as much altitude as possible and have a drink, ideally whilst rotating and
2. get on to water in a boat, unsupervised, with a bag of lager.

Well, truth be told, due to the interference of the busybodies in Brussels, a lot of people are reluctant to let unlicensed lunatics bearing bags of booze to take their craft out without a driver.

But let's not forget that Croatia is not in the European Union.

Thus we went to a man advertising boat trips.

"We'd like to take a boat trip," we said.
"No problem. I can take you out to a couple of beautiful islands near here," he replied.
"Erm, actually we thought we'd drive ourselves," we say.
"OK, you have license yes?"
"Ooh, well the thing is that we do, but we've er, left it at home, where the cat ate it,"
"OK. I'll make some calls."

(Dude makes calls. Most people are strangely reluctant to turn the vehicle of their livelihood over to us. But not everyone.)

"OK, I get you boat," says our man.

Fantastic. And they'll even pick us up at the hotel.

"A man named Mr Dublyaniochienevhiechiovich will pick you up."
"Sorry who?"
"Erm, call him Mr Boat."

Cool. So thirty minutes later, Mr Boat has arrived, we have assured him that Beardog has a good five years boating experience, sail and steam and five of us are packed into a VW Golf, driving towards our aquatic adventure.

On the way, we have a nice chat with the cab driver.

"So where are you boys going next?"
"Belgrade," we say.

A pause.

"You are visiting our enemy"
"Erm, I guess."

Cue a short discussion about how England failed to stop the rampaging Serbs in the nineties. Then another even shorter discussion about how England fought Croatia in WWII.

Erm, come on dude. I'll accept we failed you in the Balkan ruckus, but seriously, you were on the side of THE NAZIS in the big one. In fact, Croatians apparently took to massacring Serbs "With a ferocity that shocked even the Nazis". You can't complain about us opposing that surely.

Anyway, a little more talk about the Balkan war, including a brief bit about Douglas Hurd (who'd have thought we'd end up talking about him?). Then the driver announced...

"I don't like to talk about this."

So instead, tumbleweed drifted through the car as we made the last fifteen minutes of the journey in an intense and awkward silence.

Still, we got there soon enough and were instructed into how to use the boat (now rechristened by us, with characteristic sensitivity, The Douglas Hurd III).

The instructions consisted of about five minutes on how to steer, ten minutes on what to tell the cops if we get pulled over and have no papers (we borrowed the boat from our good friend Evo. Under no circumstances did we hire it) and the following exchange...

"Are there any lifejackets?"
"Are you afraid?"

I guess that would be a 'no' then.

Still, undeterred we headed off into the Adriatic, cracked open the sack of lager and immediately decided we had become pirates.


Aaaarrrrgh!

Fortunately, Beardog (now renamed Commodore Beardogov, naturally) was a good driver, as illustrated by the straight and steady wake behind the craft. Unlike when Wig took the helm, when suddenly the wake went from 'l' to 'S'.

So, hurtling along at just over walking speed, shouting various nautical sayings and drinking lager, we eventually made it to a small island about half a mile from shore.

And that was when we discovered the anchor. Pulling up in waist deep water, we tossed our handbrake over the side. Then we all jumped out. And when we'd jumped out, that was when we noticed that the boat was noticeably drifting, anchors and all.

Which is how we learned the first rule of the sea... anchors don't work.

Fear not though, we tied the boat to a bouy and headed inland, where we learned that the island was home to the charmingly-named Herman's Tortoise.

And so was born the catchphrase "Blimey, you've made a right Herman's Tortoise out of that!"

We didn't find any of them though. I think they may have been too quick for us.

Anyway, we had a lovely lunch on the island, went for a nice walk (like good, middle-class, middle-aged tourists, only without the silly hats) before deciding it was time to get back on the boat.

And so we did, this time with Wig steering (come to think of it, it's quite possible the several beers may have influenced his steering ability) until we approached the return coast.

Oh, but before we did that, we all went for a nice swim in the sea. Nothing amazing about that, until you realise that Wig had not actually swum in any kind of water for nineteen years!

So he decides to take his first dip in two decades in open seawater after several cans of lager. The boy's a genius.

Still, we all survived and even managed to bring back the craft in one piece (whilst shouting "Heave to, Croatia, and prepare to be boarded!" naturally).

And so, after some hours of sun, sea and slager (sorry, my vocabulary obviously isn't what it could be for attempts at alliteration) we took another long and uncomfortable journey with six of us in a small car back to the hotel.

After that, what else could we do but go for a pizza? And thence tired, fed and contented, to bed.

And good job too, for tomorrow was to be the day of the million-man drive.

posted by Peter The Great @ 11:57 AM