Anyone who swims in the ocean off the coast of England is obviously suffering from some form of frontal lobe injury, possibly sustained by running repeatedly into a brick wall (or being hit over the head by a carbon fibre surfboard). Anyone who straps a board to their feet and a giant kite to their hands and then enters said waters is certifiable. Then again, the land based kite flying done by the rest of us became crushingly boring within seconds, as the wind was so strong the stupid thing shot into the air and hung rigidly in the sky like it was on the end of a long pole. Perhaps if I was being hurled about by the elements rather than hanging grimly but uneventfully onto a thin string I would have found the entire exercise more gratifying in the way that near death experiences often are.I vividly recall when I was at Uni, swimming naked in the sea off Kenton, in the Western Cape. I remember an ecstatic euphoria enveloping me along with the unseasonably warm water, and the strangely disorientating effect of being spotlit by the full moon's all-encompassing flat glare. Just ahead of me I saw bobbing in the water the other full moon of JN's naked buttocks. 'Join me' I thought I heard her say, and manfully (and perhaps a bit lustfully) struck out after her. It was only when I got closer that I realised she was actually saying 'Help me', by which time I too was caught in the unyielding maw of the undertoad. An hour of desperate struggling and many litres of salt water later, I felt the tantalising scrape of sand beneath my grasping toes. Staggering onto the beach I vomited a ruby cocktail of Tassenberg and brine onto JN's feet and we collapsed onto our towels, sobbing like babies.
Right, not sure why I recounted that story. Something about near death-ness and excitement, frankly I prefer boredom. Needless to say, the water in Cyprus better be hot n' flat n' shallow, otherwise I'm buying a kite.
B
