Dorkeling, or The Art Of Horizontal Rockclimbing

'Right,' I said, 'let me just get my mask and fins, and I'll be there in a sec ...'

'No worries,' said Blue Flame, Champion Fart Lighter and Terror Of Elevators And Small Confined Spaces. 'I'll start getting along, the others have gone already.'

She waddled off in the direction where the others had gone. I grabbed my gear, shut the car and with my gear in my hands I hurried after her down the boat ramp at the beach where we were going snorkeling. When we got to the sand though I found to my surprise that, instead of wading into the water from the boat ramp, as we had agreed and planned, more or less, the whole group had chucked a hard 90 degree right turn and had started down the beach towards the lagoon. This lagoon lay protected behind a reef of rocks holding the strong currents at bay, and, we had surmised, would be prime snorkeling territory.

I stared down the beach.

What had been intended to be a five metre shuffle down the boat ramp now appeared to be developing into something altogether more challenging. The others of our group had gotten kitted out, replete with wetsuit, diving mask, snorkel, and, importantly, fins on their feet, expecting to easily survive the ten second stroll to the water like turtles fresh back from laying a thousand eggs in the sand and keen to get back to the water, float around and tend to their haemorrhoids. Popping out all those eggs is hard work on the rear end. Inexplicably they had turned up their noses at the inviting water and had, for some reason, decided to go sideways.

Which meant that there were now six people trying to walk a good 200 metres with snorkeling fins, through loose sand. With masks and snorkels on their faces.

I looked at Blue Flame, next to me. She beamed a manic smile with her snorkel stuck between her teeth, and said 'Huuuaaaarghhh?'. Then she lifted up one fin proudly, strode foreward in a determined fashion, caught the edge of her fin in the sand, and fell flat on her face.

'Prrrfft uurrgghk,' she said, as she sat up and spat out half a bucket of sand. 'I'll tell you what, it's bloody hard walking in these things!'

'Really?' I said, keeping a straight face and hiding my mask and fins behind my back. 'I thought you were doing a great job there.'

'Oh, you think so?'

'Absolutely. You're setting a great example there. Truly inspiring.' I nodded encouragingly. 'I'm sure you'll make it all the way there.'

'Yeah ... maybe ....' She looked doubtful. 'How are the others doing?'

I turned my gaze towards the rest of the group. To a man, or, as the case might be, a woman, they appeared as stubbornly determined as Blue Flame to go the whole hog, and, from the looks of it, as deluded. There was the Snake Catcher, Blue Flame's partner, striding purposefully onwards with huge great big strides, lifting up his knees to his nose at every step, and, very carefully and with great consideration and commitment, tripping over every rock in his way. Currently he was down on one knee, hands held out in front of him and feeling the air, as if trying to ascertain if he had just walked into a wall. Next to him was Kiana, Polynesian Princess Of Surf, my partner, and surely not born yesterday, because she, in her enlightenment, had seen the wisdom in walking backwards in her fins, obviously a much more reasonable proposal. So much so that she had walked backwards into Pony Girl, proud possessor of a shiny luscious tail and an enviable gallop, who had dropped to her knees with both her fins bent backwards and buried halfway into the sand. She had been trying to re-adjust her mask and snorkel which had slipped sideways off her face and were now temporarily blinding her. The Polynesian Princess of Surf crashed into her, gracefully tumbled over backwards, fins waving through the air over her head, and both of them landed upside down in the sand. Next to them the others were faring slightly better: the Foals, Pony Girl's offspring, had crashed into each other and had started a punch-on, but at least they were still upright, and, hero of the moment, the Pocket Rocket Grommet was nimbly ambling along unperturbedly and had almost reached the water.