People say bad luck comes in threes, Team Banana agrees with this. Recently we have suffered some hiccups in our innocuous activities. Heading out for our usual dose of weekend fun we have found ourselves struck down by the might of Neptune on three separate occasions.
Not ones to shy away in the face of adversity this is how we survived through breakdowns, navy operations and stranding.
Prong One – The Long Haul
Team Banana begin another trip to Khasab, our Mecca of free-diving, in usual high potassium spirits. Singing, dancing and nattering away in the Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.7 liter V8 we feel like two grade 5 prime bananas. After three hours of good time making we arrive in Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) to refuel the engine and our stomachs. We jump in the Jeep and continue our journey, except not at the speed we had previously been cruising at. The automatic car would not change gear. Following the manuals instructions we tried everything, but to no avail. The Jeep was now not so grand. We tootle along at 40 kph until we find a petrol station. There is hope for Team Banana. A kind hearted mechanic is happy to have a look at our dilemma free of charge. The problem is immediately apparent. The tube transporting the transmission oil to the transmission (which enables an automatic to change gear) is cracked, resulting in the Jeep leaving an oily trail between Abu Dhabi and RAK. He mends the problem and fills the thirsty car with 8 liters of the much-needed fluid. Team Banana is back in good spirits and ready for the second leg of the journey. Nothing changes, literally. The fresh oil does not seem to have enabled the gears to shift; we are still stuck in second gear. Wondering if it is just a matter of time for the fluid to makes it way to the necessary areas we stop and discuss a Plan B.
Plan B Option One – Drive to Khasab at a top speed of 60 kph and hope we don’t ruin the engine and break down in the middle of nowhere.
Plan B Option Two – Stay in Ras Al Khaimah and hope the car can be fixed at a garage the next day.
Plan B Option Three – Hire a rental car, continue to Khasab and pick up the Jeep the next day. This will let us dive and we won’t become abandoned on route.
The Team Banana spirit is a tough one and we do not like to give up, we take Plan B Option One. It is slow and steady but with good music and the likelihood of breaking down in the middle of nowhere, with nobody around for 50km rapidly fading in our minds, we are excited again. After a100km journey we finally arrive at our destination to enjoy a well deserved dive. With all of the events and mixed emotions we had completely forgotten about the drive back. A nine hour drive at 60 kph on one of the most dangerous roads in the world, where everyone around you is driving between 140 kph and 200 kph. Team Banana are flashed, beeped shouted at and gestured at. The onslaught of abuse climaxed as we passed through the backside of Dubai, the most congested leg of the journey. Lorries were so close we could only see their number plate, but there is nothing we can do. So we do what we do best, recline, relax, sing to music and laugh at the angry people driving past. Our spirits were never knocked and Team Banana experienced another adventure. Prong 1 passed.
Prong Two – In The Navy
Team Banana set out on their first Abu Dhabi boat trip with Malcolm the skipper and his cabin boy Ahmed. The destination is a shipwreck, half an hours journey away. Gazing across the calm morning ocean an unnatural profile breaks the horizon and catches our attention. We divert course for a closer look at the alien sculpture. As the industrial steel rig looms into view, we are nervous that it may be oil related, however the rust and foot deep icing of cormorant turd lead us to believe that its present function is nil but a perch for bottom heavy sea-birds. Feeling like we were onto something good the location is plugged into the GPS as ‘Bird Shit’. Knowing that submerged structures attract aquatic life like Team Banana to bananas, we imagine that such aquatic bloom would be more than enticing to large pelagic predators. This was too good an opportunity to pass up. With trepidation of the unknown, we take the plunge. Schools of yellow trevally, barracuda, queen-fish, and the prized giant trevally are all visible patrolling the fringes of this colossal structure. The ominous steel legs of the rig stretch down in to the blue. They are ornately decorated with parasitic barnacles and tasseled amoebas. The richest variety of fish shelter amongst the network of twisted metal amounting to a picture perfect spear-divers double rainbow. We decide to stay, tie the boat to this lovely pier and take the dive with our weapons.
A clear jelly-fish, that looks like a dim-sum dumpling, bobs between Team Banana. White carefully pushes it on its way, and unintentionally into the path of Yellow. The tiny tentacles give Yellow a toxic tickle, leaving his back rashy and sore. It's a known remedy that the alkaline in human piss will neutralize the acid of a sting, so White and Yellow return to the boat to get relief, both of them. As you know Team Banana loves all water sports, this however was by far the weirdest.
Absorbed by the natural aquarium White suddenly hears the engine of a boat. Surfacing to make sure it is not venturing too close he observes a horrible site. A large grey boat is a mere 50 meters away and heading straight for us. “Shit guys, the coastguards are here. Quick hide the guns and act normal.” We swim over, wave and say hello as nonchalantly as possible. Surely they can’t suspect these innocent greetings. How wrong. Fortunately we have Ahmed to speak Arabic with them to cut the awkward tension of non-communication. They ask for the boat license, no problem, they ask for the fishing license, no problem. They ask us to get on the boat and bring up the buoys bobbing conspicuously unattached to anything, problem. The buoys are tethered to two guns and the fish we had shot. Surprisingly the guns do not seem to bother them; however, the dusty artifact we were moored to was in fact an old oil tap connected to a submerged pipeline. Oops. They ask us to follow them back to the navy base; we comply under the suspicious gaze of two hawk-eyed officers. Already nervous about what is going on we become what is known as ‘shit scared’ when we remember the booze we have on board. Do we chuck it over? Do we hide it? We deliberate our story about the diving, our knowledge or lack there-of regarding oil rigs, the booze. A few tall tales are conjured and deviant plans to rid the alcoholic evidence crop up, however we unanimously agree that the best we could do is just be honestly apologetic and hope our captors don’t look in the cool box.
We pull into the navy marina and see a fleet of impressive vessels. De-badged matt black jet skis, 35ft boats with mounted machine guns, 50ft boats with electronic tracking machine guns. Cool place, crap scenario. We moor and are escorted to a holding cell by a burley officer whose expressionless face does nothing to ease our anxiety. Ahmed continues to discuss our situation with the officers in Arabic while the three of us wait like naughty school children waiting to be caned.
Ahmed leaves the room with a younger official for about 15 minutes. When he reappears we are told to come with him. As we are lead back to Malcolm’s boat Ahmed tells us what was up. He had taken a risk and told the coastguard that we had alcohol on the boat. After revealing the location of our beers, the Samaritan begins tossing the cans out of the boat and into the water, a delightful surprise. Unfortunately they bob in happy demonstration of their ability to swim. The cans are fished out, cracked, crushed and dispatched again into the drink. “how many have you got” … “24”. This suspicious criminal act was going to take too long. Using his initiative White starts rounding the remaining cans up into a clean sack. Donating his 5 kilogram weight belt to the cause, our little problem was bundled up, and tossed once again into the marina. 5 minds simultaneously will the lumpy black beer-bale to sink, and after a few nervy seconds, our little secret succumbs and slowly drifts down into the watery shroud. This officer had empathetically determined that we were already in enough trouble and decided to spare us from the full wrath of the CID were on their way for the mandatory inspection. This was a stroke of amazing fortune.
Walking away, Malcolm mutters, “I hope there are no plastic eating fish down there”.
An hour later, having met with an important man in dish-dash and understanding nothing of what was discussed us lads receive a short scolding and a slap on the wrist before being turned loose. The walk out of navy-prison to civilization was long and hot, but after our brush with the law we were grateful for the freedom we had been most worried of losing. Humour floods back in torrents, the bloke-ish wrath laid heavy on our little saviour. “Ahmed, what did you do for that guy to make him want to help us? Cheers for taking one for the team”… Prong 2 passed.
Prong 3 - Stranded
A week has passed since our torturous encounter with the coastguards. Team Banana invite Malcolm for an hour of high octane fun on some rented jet-ski's. We turn up at Mina Port around midday and remember that during Ramadan it is difficult to do most things. The port is on lockdown for prayers. Disappointed, we turn to leave just as a car of two rotund locals pulls up. These guys carry the self-titled nickname of the ‘dub-dub’ (double double) brothers and rightly so, they are an identical 5 ft 5 and 185 kilograms apiece. "You looking for jet-skis?" "Yes" "Yallah, come". The two Arabs are charismatic, flash their ID's revealing they are special policemen, brag about their party island which opens during the upcoming Eid holidays and joke about how their favorite beverage is anything containing Smirnoff. We decide to take them up on their offer and so the three of us cram into 2 cars along with the double doubles and their entourage of 5 little Indian men. They charge us 350 dirhams for 'super super' jet-ski's and send us on our way. These jet-ski's are quick, accelerating to 100kmph in a matter of seconds, we tear off out to sea, three happy chappies.
Five minutes into our excursion, White’s ski cuts out coming up with an alert that the engine has overheated. No surprise as it is 46 degrees. Yellow and Malcolm charge off on a water sortie thinking Whites jet-ski will right itself given a short rest. Ten minutes later they return to see White floundering in the open water on the back of a dead duck. Slightly irritated about getting a bung machine, we decide to tow the crippled ski back with a rope we find in one of the storage holds. Malcolm jumps into the drink to tie the two skis together. In a matter of milliseconds Yellows idling water rocket sucks the rope up its intake, throwing the two machines together in a dangerous collision. Luckily Malcom is unscathed; however, our situation has turned dire. 3 idiots, 2 broken jet-skis, no phone, no water, stranded in the hot Arabian sun, a couple of kilometers away from the safety of land. A quick brainstorm reveals that we have no other option but to wait for rescue. Coastguards patrol these waters all the time right? Recreational boaters always take their vessels out in the weekend right? Other jet-skiers are always terrorizing these calm waters right? Not today. So we wait, helplessly hot and thirsty in the sun, for over 3 hours.
A small motorboat comes into view, anxiety levels drain, and relief washes over us. First things first, "Have you got any water?", "We don't have any to spare." By now we are foaming at the mouth due to dehydration.... "Can we use your phone?", "What! You guys don't have water, and you don't have a phone?!".... You get the gist of how helpful these elderly Brits are. According to Malcolm, they are not abiding by the code of the sea, a very important doctrine to all boaties, which includes items such as, "The captain goes down with the ship", "If you piss off the boss, you walk the plank", "If you upset captain hook, you go in the boo box" and most importantly "If you ever encounter anybody in distress, you should help them because one day it may happen to you". In the end, the couple call the Dub Dub brothers, however are unable to give them directions to our location. The useless rescuers also tell the gigantic duo that they think one of us is dead (as later recited, truth or not truth, by the Dubs). Not prepared to risk the chance that Dubs may or may not come get/find us, we convince the couple to take White onto their boat and back to shore to get help. They drop him off at a moored coastguard boat. After first refusing to take him onboard because they were changing shifts, White is forced into their hands by the woman who states, "You must take him, he is not our friend". The coastguards get out of their cabin. To Whites utter disbelief it is the same man who had detained them the previous weekend at the oil-rig. He smiles and shakes his head, clearly thinking we are nothing but a bunch of stupid bananas. They drop White back to Yellow, Malcolm and the 2 dead Jetski's and inform us that they have radioed the next patrol who will come fetch us in 5 minutes.... 45 more minutes. A coast guard arrives to tow us back to shore.... "Do you have any water?".... damn, that's right, its Ramadan.
On the slow tow back to the marina, the Dubs race up on jet-ski's like two very fast walrus’. Even the sight of the spandex they are wearing, which reveals the full capacity of their morbid obesity, is not enough to cheer up 3 frustrated lads. Luckily they toss us a small bottle of water, under the disapproving eye of the coastguards. When we get back to the marina, the rope sucked up into Yellows machine is easily removed and no damage has been found. White’s machine however, has apparently been broken due to some debris being sucked up into the intake cracking the cooling fan.... ambiguous, considering we had only traveled on open water for 5 minutes. The double doubles, insist we pay 3,500 dirhams for the repair.
It is now 6pm, our 1 hour of fun, has turned into a day long ordeal. After 4 hours stranded the three of us are very weak from dehydration and sunstroke and are frustrated to the point where we just want to go, have a refreshing swim, and a beer. Not wanting to jeopardize these glorious things, we fork out the cash. Just when we feel like things have hit rock bottom, the banana's realize... bad luck comes in 3's. This event signaled the last of ours. We think of Neptune and smile, he has laid wrath upon us, put us in the face of adversity, we have handled our plights and emerged out the other side, proud noble bananas, ready to reap the benefits of eons of good fortune, and prosperity. Thank you Neptune.
Y&W
No comments:
Post a Comment