SATURDAY 22ND JULY
Stupidly, I had gone and got a bit drunk last night. To be fair, though, I had finally sorted out the financial and physical timescale of the operation that I was actually in this heat-drenched place to complete. I had good reason for, ahem, a minor celebration. The fact that the live gig at Blue Juice Bar had been shut down by the policeat around 11pm, following complaints from well-connected locals upstairs in Proas restaurant, had given everyone a jolly good reason to hang about and be indignant about it. I also got to meet a bloke from an unsigned Birmingham band, and said we might be able to work something out back home. I took his number. I still have to call him.
As I'd rolled in last night, I'd set my alarm for 545am - you'll be pleased to hear I had now corrected the clock time for Spain, and that my alarms were going off when they were supposed to. I'd finally got my head down and out by, probably, 330am. My alarm was set so as to allow me 15 minutes of snoozing, before dragging my sorry ass out of bed, under the shower and into the car.
Why was I getting up so early? Scuba diving. I'd decided from England that, if I was going over there - ostensibly - to run around like an idiot trying to get things done in a hot country, I was gonna get me some personal time while I was over there, doing nothing but things I like. And so I'd booked a morning's diving in Puerto Pollensa, where I drove to yesterday on the recce. Pollensa is a good hour and a quarter driving from Cala D'Or. I'd sorted a 2-tank dive (i.e. two dives), and I had to be there for 8am. I'd be back on the dock by midday. So, you can see the problem here: pissed, passed out, two hours sleep, one-and-a-half hour's drive, two hour's scuba diving. Hmm.
Nothing happened as I expected. My grace period was not needed: as the alarm started beeping at 545am, I leapt up like a jack-in-the-box, such was my excitement for what lay ahead, and below. I jumped into the shower, threw on my clothes, grabbed my already-packed scuba bag and legged it. I was out of the door of my hotel room by five-past-six and took the opportunity to have a complimentary - and nuclear-strength -
caffe con leche from the hotel bar area. I haven't been taking much advantage of the second B in my B&B rate and thought I'd spin them out by turning up once, at 6am.
What is that boy doing here? they must be wondering. He doesn't go to the beach. He comes and goes looking like a man on a mission. And what is it with that hat-and-shades combo? Truth be known, had I been observed through my hotel window at any point during this mission so far, there would have been good reason to ask even more probing questions. He comes and goes in his car, getting bags of supplies and technical items, before coming back and heading off with that black flatbag strapped across him like a holster. He doesn't seem to get up very early, and he's always in bed late. What's more, he seems to spend much of his time rifling through paperwork in his bedroom, and counting out large piles of cash on his unused bed. And it's a lot of cash. It looks like drug money. That's it. He's an international drugs baron, preying on the young and innocent, luring them into a bottomless chasm from which they cannot escape. Arrest that man.
And so. I'm in the car by 630am, suitably zinged from the hotel coffee. I start my journey, first out to Santanyi, before heading for Felanitx. On the way there, I pass Sant Salvador and reflect on my experience up there yesterday. I really like the Spanish approach to town/road design. You follow signs to a place, and you can always expect - if not actually visiting the town - to get signs before you enter the centre, pointing you off in the direction of the next place en route. And that is how it works, it's dead simple. You can't fuck it up.
Felanitx is another major town in the Santanyi admin district, and it's bleeding lovely. There's a regular weekly market there, as there are in many of Mallorca's towns and villages - and the most heavenly plaza you've ever seen. As you are directed through the town, you come to a long plaza, with traffic sent either side. In the middle, it's lined with trees, and paved with gorgeous tiles. A cafe sets up its tables and chairs on the plaza itself - the business is across the road, and waiters must negotiate the traffic while delivering short, hot coffees and soft drinks. It is one of the most peaceful urban plazas I think you might ever find. There isn't a lot of traffic around here.
I pick up signs to Manacor, and you realise you are heading away from the coast. Where the air is always fresh and clear near the shore, once you come inland - especially inland where the night mists haven't yet been burned away by the sun - the air becomes thicker and sticks in your throat like chocolate. I noticed a haze forming on my windscreen, and realised it was humidity - dew - gathering on the glass. And so I had to drive with my wipers on for much of the rest of the journey across the central flatlands.
From Manacor, it's a swing north towards Petra and Sineu. This is real farming country out here. It might be fields of wheat, or grazing animals. It could be vineyards, or olive groves, or orange and lemon trees. The road goes from wide double-track to thin double-track, and you can get stuck behind lorries and farm vehicles just as easily as you would in the middle of the day. And I do. Mallorca has tailbacks at 7am, in the countryside.
Passing Petra, then Sineu, I pick up signs to Inca and am excited, knowing that there is 2-lane motorway ahead. As you come across this plain, the imposing mountains that form the northern coast of Mallorca start looming from the mists. They are jagged, rough-hewn peaks here, no soft, Pennine undulation. They are hot, and dry, and dusty. Sometimes in the winter there is snow on the peaks. And as you get closer, they almost seem to stretch out above you, dark shapes leaping from a clear sky, trying to scare the children.
My right foot gets a little heavier. Soon, just before you reach Inca itself, you find blue signage, giving you the choice of Palma (all roads lead to Palma, you wouldn't believe it) or Alcudia. Settling myself into the Alcudia stream, I hit the m-way and put the foot down. This Ford Fiesta - yep, they still have them in Spain, must be the name - doesn't have a lot of welly, but once you've wound it up to the high revs in fifth it'll buzz past anything.
The journey to Alcudia is rapid, congestion-free and directly into the rising sun. Once I hit Alcudia - Mick at Scuba Mallorca had advised me to take the coast route to Puerto Pollensa, rather than through Pollensa and back to the m-way - I took the sign to PP. Mick was right, it was quicker, or it would have been had I not got stuck behind two tankers delivering potable water to the resorts. Potable over here is not what you call potable here in Blighty. You can drink from the tap but expect it to be a) slightly warm and musty and b) slightly salty. I'd get some bottles of Evian, if I were you.
Soon, the water lorries have turned off towards their destinations, and I'm clear around Bahia Alcudia. It's a picture. The whole bay is as still as a millpond. Gentle undulations mark the surface; big, soft curves across the whole bay. The sun is at about 10 degrees of elevation and is rebounding onto your retinas with such an intensity, the whole world goes three shades lighter. It is beautiful.
I ponder the idea of waterskiing on it. I'm sorry if that annoys the "keep nature natural" lobby. I love nature, too, really, I do. I respect it. But there's nothing like being dragged at 30mph across glass with a carbon-fibre monoski attached to your pins, while you carve arcing walls of water from left to right to left again, at 8am as the sun rises. Annoyingly, someone with a boat and waterskis had also had this very same thought, and so I watched as the hooligan tore around this area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, in rather the same way that teenagers with motorbikes will abuse municipal parkland.
I was parked up on the front at Puerto Pollensa by ten-to-eight. Grabbing my kit bag, I locked up the slow old girl and wandered nonchalantly off in the direction of the dive school. I felt good, and was really looking forward to this, especially given the sea state and sunshine. This would bode well for visibility down below. A short walk up Calle d'Elcano had me just finishing my fag, before stubbing it out and walking in. Mick was there and nodded, but I was welcomed, booked in and logged by a tall, thin, sinewy chap called Ron. He introduced himself as the instructor, and sent me off to kit-up. We are diving in 5mm full suits, including helmets. We have bootees. Obviously we have our BCDs, weight belts and spiders with us, too, as well as the fins. I feel like I'm going deep-sea diving, properly.
I've got my kit sorted quickly, and gently ask if smoking is allowed on-board the dive boat. I'm told that it is not, and so take the chance - while my fellow divers finish off sorting themselves out - to steal the last cigarette for about 3 hours. I don't know how I'm going to manage. While I do this, a sturdy, bulldoggish character from the dive school looks at me disapprovingly as I spark up on the street. Probably thinks I'm some fly-boy, weekend diver, not a real diver, like him.
Once everyone's kit is bagged up, the holdalls are taken to the quayside. We all walk down to the quay and take our perches on the dock, opposite the Miss Connie. She's a legend, it's true, if you don't believe me, see what John Bantin said about her in
Diver magazine. Once all the tanks are loaded into their stalls - there are two tanks each, ten divers, so about 250kgs of heavy cylinders to load before the divers board - we take our numbered dive bags from the trolley, board the vessel and are seated next to our tanks.
Once the boat casts-off and starts chugging towards the marina entrance, Ron introduces himself to everyone and introduces everyone to each other. Ron, a very easy-going Dutchman, seems to be putting everyone on a similar experiential level: none of you are very experienced, he said, which is good for the group as you will all be going along at a similar rate.
There is a couple from England who are 40-ish - they're about to get married, and clearly love diving - it is what brought them together. They talk about the places they've been, endlessly. He has a rather nasty skin condition, and so has his own wetsuit (thank God).
Then there are a pair of teenage boys: I say teenage, as the rampant levels of hormones racing around their developing bodies has brought both of them out in a plague of pustulent sores, which cover their faces, chests and backs. They have not brought their own wetsuits. I am aghast at the thought of the next person to wear these suits.
There's another British couple, both quite quiet but clearly very sporty, given their physiques.
Then there is a German couple, who are clearly going to be quite alone on this trip, surrounded as they are by Brits. The art of xenophobia between the two nations may have been put to one side around the Big Tables of the EU, but here in Mallorca: it's still war.
The final two divers are myself and Charles, both here solo. Charles and I are put together as buddies. He's from Blackburn, and is a thoroughly nice chap. He lives out here, servicing and maintaining villa swimming pools, as well as a bit of gardening here and there.
Ron briefs us on our first dive site, The Pinnacle. We'll be starting off in 5-7m for our descent, before swimming out and around a submerged headland. Following the wall of the headland out to sea, we'll be dropping down as far as 18m. The maximum depth here is about 25m. Once we're at the tip of the headland, we swim back up the other side, before swimming through a submerged archway that will bring us right back to where we descended, ready for our ascent.
Ron promises lots of fish, and says he's going to try and find us an octopus. Excitedly, we all make our giant stride entries from the dive platform on the rear of Miss Connie, and after a few additional weights are given to me (I have no idea why I am so buoyant), we're all down at the starting point and ready for Ron to lead the way. As we swim out, it's clear the visibility is excellent, 30 metres at least. There won't be any getting lost today. As we start to go deeper, suddenly at about 15 metres we swim through a cloud of damselfish, all spawning. Lurking in their midst is a distinctly-uninterested barracuda, casually swimming through the finger buffet.
We head deeper and come to the end of The Pinnacle itself, and come around it and head back towards land. Ron did clearly tell us not to go too deep - to stray no lower than he himself. Unfortunately, my buoyancy was still getting a bit of a refresher course down there, and I found myself down at 22.5 metres. It's nice down there. Very quiet indeed. And very much colder. And a bit darker.
Coming up to about 15m on the offside of the headland, Ron was suddenly very excited indeed. He had abandoned his post at the front of the group, and was swimming back, as if following something. He gave the universal divers handsignal for "octopus" - yes, your hand, with wiggly fingers hanging down. We all turned and followed. Needless to say, I barged my way to the front of the gang and hounded the poor creature on video. I am part Jacques Cousteau, part paparazzi, down there.
At about 10-12m, you come finally to the archway, and after a bit of a swim about the area and some more video shooting, you head through towards the ascent RV. I shall point out now, and never again, that - when you are diving, it's like being in a massive park, or flying through the air. You don't expect to bang into things. I would like the German girl of the pairing to remember that, and can I perhaps advise a mask that allows you some peripheral vision (go on, you'll even see more...), rather than one that looks like swimming goggles. You kept bumping into me like a muppet, and I suspect that's because you are a) an absolute beginner and b) unable to see properly. Sort it.
I came up through the archway - a little too fast as it turned out, as my
dive computer started beeping at me to warn of rapid ascent - and so I went back down a bit to allow the gases to restablise in my bloodstream. I watched others swim through gracefully, some gracelessly, but all enjoying this wonderful world beneath the waves. Once Ron had counted us all back to the ascent RV, he indicated for us all to start our ascents, and one by one we popped back up to the surface, after a dive time of about 30 minutes.
That's the thing with diving on air - and here I mean bog-standard, non-enriched air. For your full cylinder - usually 12 litres at 200 bar (that's air at 200 times atmospheric pressure!) - there is a law of diminishing returns. The deeper you go, the greater the actual water pressure, hence the more work your body has to do to get at the air supply (don't worry, you don't actually notice this!). Basically speaking: the deeper you go on your dive, the shorter the time your tank of air lasts. I could leap forward into deep-diving skills and air-mixes like nitrox (oxygen with an "overdose" of nitrogen so you're gaseous exchange can handle deep-water pressure and stay down longer), but I shan't. I'll start sounding like a nerd.
So, our dive to 18m (allegedly) lasted around the half-hour mark. Once we were all back on board, and the kit stowed securely, we started chugging round to our next dive site. En route, Ron suddenly pulls out a box full of cheese slices, ham and salami, as well as a load of fresh bread. He cuts the baguettes into three, and slices each down one edge, before inviting us to cobble together our brunch and get munching. What a nice touch.
I did have a strange conversation with the wife of the bloke with shingles. We got chatting about our diving experiences, and as we're all around the 10-dive mark, we started comparing notes. She'd done her PADI Open Water full course in Gozo - and so I was able to share common tales of the sites there. She asked me where I'd learnt. I told her I'd done PADI Scuba Diver in Dubai, and completed my OW in Gozo. Ooh, Dubai, get you! she joshes. You're just a show-off, that's all you are! she continued, perhaps a little unnecessarily. I switched back to Gozo and her hubby-to-be pipes up, Of course, we're getting married in Sharm early next year. Marriage and diving. Perfect. He was very excited about this, and clearly thought it pipped diving on a wrecked cement barge in the UAE. Definite "keeping up with the Joneses" types. More from this pair later.
Ron is an entertaining bloke. He was hugely asthmatic as a kid, and so his breathing always presented a major problem. Then he discovered scuba diving. It's thought that it has improved his condition, in fact - as he's never been a smoker - Ron now has off-the-scale lungs in terms of both capacity and gas exchange. He is super-efficient. Where your average diver - you or me - will use up most, if not nearly all, of a single tank on each dive, Ron can use a single tank for THREE dives. The man is a fish. Come the rising of the seas, I'm with Ron.
As we finish our baguettes we are arriving at our second dive site. Having gone so deep on the first one, we need to have a long, leisurely - and not too deep - dive this time around. Ron's Reef is the perfect site. Coming out from the cliff edge along a reasonably straight piece of coastline, is a reef that lies in 5-10m. Ron lets us all off the boat, and just tells us to get on with it, keep in touch with your buddies, keep communicating. Charles and I head off, taking note this time to keep away from the crowd. There's no need for collisions underwater, it's a big fucking space.
The dive is charming. It's not testing in the slightest, and there are fish everywhere, most of them in spawn. There were zebra seabream (aka sergeant major fish, for their banded vertical striping); rabbit fish (or cow bream - I'm not sure why the contest); I also came up close on a violet nudibranch, clinging for dear life to a sprig of seaweed anchored to a rock; peacock wrasse darted in and out of their rock holes, guarding their young; a school of saddleback bream, desperately trying to shake off my attention; everywhere you looked, something big or small caught the eye - you end up not knowing quite where to look.
I spent some of my time swimming along on my back down there, staring up at the sun wobbling around in front of me. It's obviously not as bright as staring at it above sea level. You can actually look at it. And when you look back, and you see how deep it penetrates the water, you realise its power, and how essential it is for life.
There was a minor incident. One of the divers I think had a panic attack, and had to ascend in a state of some alarm. Of course, rising too rapidly from depth is a dangerous thing, which causes the oxygen in your blood to become imbalanced, and giving you what is called the bends - decompression sickness. Thankfully, in water this deep (less than 10m) the risk is not too great. However, she didn't look great when we all got back up and into the boat for home. But I'd had a great day, and a dive time of 46 minutes. My total dive time to date is now 7 hours and 9 minutes. That's like staying underwater for the duration of a flight from London to Miami.
On the way back, I had another strange conversation with the bloke with the bad flesh. He asked me what I was up to for the rest of my holiday, which is a fair enough question. So, I gave him a rapid outline of my mission: dad lived here, dad died, dad left boat, boat needs collecting. Bloody hell, hark at you! he blurts. Dubai! Gozo! Key West! Cayman Islands! Boats! You're a bit of a playboy, aren't you! All of which I thought was rather unnecessary.
Within twenty minutes we were mooring up at Puerto Pollensa marina. In a chain-gang, the blokes passed off all the used tanks. We collected up our bags full of kit, and these were again taken from us in a cart, and towed on a van back to the shop. The divers walked back to the school from dockside.
Beer? I suggested to Charles. He sniggered. I've got to bleeding work this afternoon, he moaned. But, I'll take you for the best bacon buttie in Pollensa. I'll be having a cup of tea with it, though. We stripped off our wetsuits and hosed them down, along with the booties. Our spiders, BCD and fins were left in their bags, in the washroom for the school to clean later. A quick towel-wrap change - and this was everyone, male and female, in one room together - and we were all dried and ready to go. A quick pay at the desk - my morning cost me 50 quid - and Charles and I were out into the midday sun, heading for sugar, caffeine, transfat and grease. Yum.
I have let myself down in failing to remember the name of the English-run caff that Charles took me to. All I know is, that it's a couple of rows back from the front strip at Pollensa and is long and thin as you enter it. There is a long seating area with TV screens showing Sky Sports, before you reach the edge of the bar, which is L-shaped with the long edge continuing towards the back of the place, from where you can enter the kitchen beyond the bar end (if you work there) and the highly-modern, uber-funky toilets - think Studio 54 meets Blake's Seven - open to all (if you don't).
Charles and I got a tea and buttie each, and talked about the Open. The whole Woods and Faldo spat. Who's gonna do it. And so on. The lady who runs the place is a Geordie lass, about 50. She's fun, and was the only person I saw in the whole time I was in Mallorca that sold Coke Zero. I love Coke Zero. It's what Coke should have brought out a long time ago, as Diet Coke tastes like shit and gives you serious acid gas. I note that Coke Zero has in its ingredients list - unlike Diet Coke - an antacid. Seriously.
The buttie went down a storm, slathered in ketchup and served in a barm cake. Proper. Once I'd lugged my tea down (two sugars, thanks, lots of milk), I ordered a large Coke Zero - which was two bottles and a pint glass loaded with ice. The first went in, and much of the second, when the bar became interested in this new-fangled Coke Zero. Crowding around me, the lady of the house included, the debate began: what is it? what does it taste like? is there more sugar in it then normal Coke? and so on. The way all of these questions were answered was for the remainder in my second bottle to be passed around from mouth to mouth among about five Brits, most registering mmms of approval. I tell you, I wish someone had filmed it. It would have made such a good advert.
Charles had work to go to, so repeated his pleasure at meeting me, and I likewise, before he scurried off into the sun, a northern British man sweltering in the inferno he'd moved to. He gave me his business card, and I said I'd email him the shots of him underwater. I finished my Coke Zero, paid up and headed back out to the car, my kitbag slung over my shoulder.
I immediately phoned the missus, mainly to gloat, to tell her all about it, and to hear her dismay at not having done the same. Needless to say, I was spot on here. I told her all about the wall and the depth, the barracuda, the damselfish, the octopus, the nudibranch, the hundreds of fish swarming, the German crash-bang girl, my buddy Charles, Ron the instructor...and that I was absolutely bloody knackered and had to get home before I pass out.
The interior of the car - as it had been sat in a completely unshaded area from 745am to 1230pm - was the temperature of a wood-burning stove. Before I did anything, all the windows were down and - fuck it - I'm gonna run the aircon and rev the engine, just for some goddamned cold. This is stifling, I'm sticky the minute I walk out into the open air. You can't do anything. Even standing still makes you sweat buckets, little rivulets practically squirting from every pore.
Once I was on the move and the bulk of the heat had dissipated, I shut the windows and let the aircon do its work more efficiently. I pondered that, the man who starts setting up import deals right now for car aircon, home aircon, office aircon, right here in the UK, will be making money within the next decade. If this is what it's going to be like, more often, then a killing is there to be made.
I don't remember much of the drive back, other than that I was going back the same way I'd come, and was just checking off markers as I passed them. The post-dive bliss is, well, bliss. I imagine it's a combination of the experience, of doing something dangerous, of doing it well, together with the slightly high feeling you get once you're back on land. You wobble a bit. You feel light. You feel clean. The gas mix in your blood has altered, and for a time until that returns to normal, you feel superhuman.
I got back to the hotel, and staggered up to my room. I put all my wet kit into the bath and ran the shower over them, cold water only. You must always wash anything that's been in salt water - it's your choice between the item lasting years, or months. Maybe weeks. Having done the necessary, I stacked them all to dry and got in myself, washing excessively with free hotel body gel to get rid of the stench of shared neoprene. Must get my own wetsuit.
Once out, I had a cigarette on my balcony and rang the missus for one last gloat. I told her I was a sleepwalker, that I had to go. I feel onto my bed at about 2pm. The plan was that I would sleep until evening and head off and out, maybe down to Blue Juice, or The Port Pub, maybe Bar Cream or Upstairs Bar. Who knows? I'll decide when I get up.
It would be 2am the next day before I did so much as stir.
