Ionian Sea (in Greece, it turns out)

I was sailing in the Ionian Sea with a skipper who liked a beer for breakfast. He did not like a shower, but he was one of those people who tended to smell musty, like a rarely flicked through book in a damp library, rather than an offensive acidic tramp kind of stench.

I didn’t meet many Greeks. I did meet some very lovely Czech, Polish and German girls, and some girls from Buxton with potato head faces.

We ate and drank at some fine tavernas, which is foreign for bar. We anchored the yacht at some caves and some bays and got on the masks and snorkels and dived. I had a panic attack in the sea which played havoc with my breathing; salt water and lungs are a bad combination. I had to find something to hold on to so I darted up a pointy sharp stalactite and hugged it like a barnacle. In shorts and a mask all misted and blurry, my snorkel slapped my head whilst I was hyper-ventilating. The skipper looked on and cracked open a beer, sat down on the bow and pointed and laughed. At this stage my brother popped up to the surface with a lungful of ocean. He bought up his lunch and made alien noises that the skipper and Bruce thought was me. It was not me. I was too scared of drowning to concentrate on noises.

I spluttered back to the boat and climbed aboard. The rock had cut my arms. The skipper stopped laughing – but only because he was taking an Amstel swig.

I now want to buy a yacht, but I cannot, so if anyone wants a keen but aqua-phobic crew member, please give me a ring.