MONTY: at Dive Fest

I went, I saw, I fested. The rain drummed incessantly, viz was a glorious four and a half inches, several gulls flew past me backwards in the hurricane winds, and it was a tad chilly. But it was brilliant.

Dive Fest was an inspired idea – my only regret is that I didn’t think of it first. To get divers, RIBs, manufacturers, conservation experts and – crucially – beer all together on the same stretch of beach was always going to be a winning concept. Lots of other people thought so too, and a great snake of RIBs towed by splendidly rufty-tufty four-wheel drives rattled and clattered their way to Cornwall. This was actually only one half of a monumental collision, as charging enthusiastically towards the same spot was a spiralling low-pressure system.

With a closing speed of about 200 miles an hour, the RIBs and divers smashed into the storm front at precisely 9am on Saturday morning, with the venue for this meeting being Pentewan Sands Holiday Park. Sand whistled through the air just like those dust devils you see on the more dramatic documentaries about benighted regions of the world, the boats bucked and heaved on their trailers like living things, and groups of divers moved around huddled together, chins to chests, shoulders hunched, and bobble hats crammed down over gurning features.

No one could dive, so – being fairly philosophical about the weather – everyone took themselves off to explore the local area, pootled around the kit stands, chatted to the conservation groups, and peered through slitted, hate-filled eyes at anyone who owned a bigger RIB than they did.

Everyone therefore had a very relaxing day, except for a certain dog-owning DIVE journalist. Filming the weekend for the Underwater Channel, we had to dive. So myself, a tiny ickle Para (Andy Torbet), cameraman Stuart, and attendant safety divers waddled into the surf to claw about in the suspended particulate gloop. We got to a depth of 2.8m, before returning to the beach at about 30 knots courtesy of waves that came straight out of the Guinness ad. We were all grinning hugely as we stomped back up the beach – brilliant fun.

I went off to indulge in some good hard RIB porn, skulking around between great, turgid, orange monsters sitting muscularly on gleaming trailers. In doing so, I came across a splendid sight. Amid all this horsepower, 3D navigation electronics and state-of-the-art braked trailers, sat a heavily patched old ruin... and he was tending his own RIB (ba-dum tish!). He was sitting cross-legged on the ground, some very rusty spanners laid out on his knee, with an old but much loved engine spewing it’s craggy metallic innards on the grass around him. The RIB had more dents, repairs and filler in it than Joan Collins, but you bet your bottom dollar that if there was one RIB that would definitely be running among all the rest of them it would be that one. Wow, I thought, I want to be that bloke in 30 years’ time.

And so the day wore on, with divers drifting back to the site from their travels. What to do? What to do? I say, is that massive Billy-Smart-style marquee over there a beer tent? I believe it is. Why don’t we all go in there – just to get out of this frightfully inclement weather, you understand?

And so everyone did. And the day went from being a bit of a washout (in diving terms anyway) to being one of the best days/nights I can remember for a long time. The moaning of the ropes in the winds, the crack of the canvas, the crash of the surf – it was like a Hornblower adventure, except there was a brilliant band, hundreds of inebriated divers, some very, very dodgy dancing, and some great chat with the diving family.

Dive Fest must continue. I speak for all the kit manufacturers who turned up and told me how great it was to speak to real divers, at a dive site, about real kit issues. I speak for the conservation groups and the RNLI, who did great business as they were dealing with enthusiasts with a real passion for the marine environment. I speak for the students who sat around the bonfire and soaked up stories from the old and bold. I speak for the hugely experienced dive team that filmed with me, scrabbling around in three feet of murk, and yet coming up with cheesy grins that said it all about British divers and diving. And most of all, I say it for the old geezer and his boat – my new hero – who I hope represents all of us in a few years’ time.

British diving needs to celebrate its quirky, remarkable self more often, and Dive Fest is the way to do it.