Inishbofin 2004
Liam Mooney's Midsummer's week with CSAC
If, while departing for your week in Inishbofin,
you whack your car against a pier post you begin to wonder if
coming on this trip really such a good idea? I’m in the
company of 20 or so crazed (crazy?) scuba divers with no time
to dwell on the damage – ‘What’s the damage?
About several hundred euro. Rats!’ – there’s
gear to be loaded. A mountain of bags, bottles, weightbelts, compressors
and God only knows what else has appeared on the quayside, and
that mountain has to be transferred to the ferry. Rats!
Surprisingly the ferry leaves more or less on time. At the Inishbofin
end the un-loading begins. By some stroke of fortune I’m
put in charge of a bicycle and ordered to the hotel. I’ve
no idea where the hotel is and only a faint suspicion that it
might be called Doon something or other. Still I was free and
I didn’t have to distribute the ‘mountain’ to
the waiting vans. Against all odds I found it – 
Murray’s
Doonmore Hotel, according to the sign - and started to help unpack
what loads had already arrived from the ferry. The divers, bless
their souls, were planning a plunge in the afternoon. I was planning
a life resuscitating nap.
The bar of the Doonmore hotel looks out across a small road
and over a grassy knoll to the sea and a number of small islands
therein. Somebody had the good sense to install a large plate
glass window between the bar and the outside world and, after
my dreamless siesta, I spent a very pleasant hour or so sitting
looking through the window at the seascape beyond. Of course I
was bracing myself for the returning divers with their stories
of the deep … ‘The vis was great.’. ‘Did
you see the size of that lobster?’. ‘And what’d
you think of the colours of the anemone? ‘. ’I’d
say that conger was at least five feet long’. This would
keep us going until dinner time. We weren’t the only guests
in Murray’s but we seemed to more than fill their dining
room. Every so often Brendan would clink his wine glass with his
knife and a hush would fall. After a while everyone except Brendan
tired of this prank. Those who felt up to it returned to the bar
after dinner where the conversation, amongst other things, continued
to flow.
The following morning another dive was scheduled and yet another
in the afternoon. This was to be the pattern for the remaining
days. The non-divers; whoever happened to be having a ‘rest’
and this car wrecking interloper, either lazed in the vicinity
of the hotel or tramped the island. On one of the few times diving
was cancelled, a group of us trudged around the island in ‘soft’
rain stopping at the East beach where some brave souls took to
the sea, in swimming trunks rather than diving gear. There were
calls for ‘skinny’ dipping from some of the non-swimmers.
The fact that these latter were women and the swimmers all men
was a mere coincidence.
The ‘Inishbofin Challenge’ is, I am told, an annual
relay event. This year the legs of the relay were, swimming (quelle
suprise),
egg and spoon (bet you didn’t expect that) and three-legged
race (beginning to get silly now) and the whole shamozel was ably
organised by Rhona. I did my best to be elsewhere when teams were
being picked but to no avail. I was to be one half of the three-legged
race, the other one and a half legs belonging to Ronan. Our swimmer
was Niall and our captain and egg and spooner was Gerry. Niall
duly came first in the swim, Andrew Legg won the egg and spoon
and Kevin and Brian were victorious in the three-legged race.
After a very hotly contested event, particularly the egg and spoon
section where the placings were in much dispute, the overall team
prize went to ‘my’ team – my detractors would
say Ronan carried me and this could have been readily verified
in the literal sense by the onlookers. I did my best but the team
still won! PJ was the long suffering adjudicator and I can only
hope the death threats are abating.
The ‘challenge’ was on Monday so, for me, the rest
of the week was fairly much downhill. The divers still dove (?)
twice a day or, for the chronically afflicted three times a day
– an extra early morning dive being thrown in for good measure.
Each dive would see the coxswains and the wannabe coxswains ferrying
rib loads of expectant submarines to their watery playground.
There for half an hour they would disappear from view and I can
only defer to their accounts as to the sights and sensations they
experienced below the waves. Their foray being over they would
be delivered back to the shore and some of their number would
‘volunteer’ to fill the bottles ready for the next
instalment. It was interesting to observe the ‘bottle filling’
ritual. Although a number of people would be involved initially,
a stalwart would usually emerge and would refuse all offers of
help or replacement. I first thought that this was selflessness
of the highest order but I was later to learn that it was more
likely a device to gain absolution from further stints of this
tiresome and noisey task.
Did I mention that there was (and no doubt still is) a second
drinking establishment on the island. Day’s bar is a fifteen
minute walk from Murray’s – I know ‘cause I
made that walk a number of times. Often the journey was made on
push bike by the weary divers. If you didn’t possess a bicycle
on the island it mattered little you just took the nearest one
to hand – locks are for canals! Day’s hasn’t
the pretty setting of the Doonmore hotel but it did have a television
in the bar which served to keep the soccer aficianados in the
group abreast of Euro 2004 developments. Many’s the enforced
moonlight walk was undertaken by the football folk after their
transport had been commandeered by those who hadn’t waited
for the final whistle.
After a week of the three d’s (diving, debating and drinking
(water, tea, coffee and such like!)) there was just one more hoorah
on Saturday for those left on the island. I can only imagine the
departure scene at the pier in Bofin after the week’s last
dive as I had left the day before to run an errand of mercy on
the mainland.
The low point of the week for me was being persuaded to take
a trip out with the divers on a rib. Going out and coming back
were fine but bobbing about while the others in the vessel scarpered
over the edge and into the briney brought me closer to making
eye contact with my nine a.m. breakfast than I care to at twelve
midday. But I survived and the rest of the week was a refreshing
change from the nine to five.
The high point was the sing song in Murray’s. Was it Tue
sday
or Wednesday? Who knows? Who cares? Andrew played the uilleann
pipes, Brian was on the bodhran. Some wondering minstrel played
fiddle and whistle, though not simultaneously. Mick sang up a
storm giving the lead to others from the club. The locals took
up the call and on it went into the night.
Of course there was the lovely scenery, the walks, the fort at
the entrance to the
harbour, the sandy beaches, oh and twenty or more divers will
attest to the great vis and the abundant sea life.
Thanks to the Curragh Sub Aqua club in general and particularly
to Neil for organising the week, to Rhona for the ‘challenge’
and to the other 26 or so bodies who turned up making it all so
enjoyable.
I hope to ‘join’ you again sometime if my wife, Jean,
extends me the invitation.
Liam
(A Landlubber)
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