MONTY: Trout, trotters and twin-sets

It’s been a perfect day today. The sun has shone, a gentle breeze has wafted in from the Atlantic, meaning that the local midge population has cancelled flying operations for the time being, and the air has had that first, crisp promise of autumn. I went trout fishing this morning as filming was cancelled, and caught four. That’s right: four. I then went for a surf on a vast white sweep of sand with not another soul to be seen.

I’m now sitting on my sofa, a peat fire glowing in the grate, with my feet on Reuben as he snores away on the rug while I tap away on the keyboard and relish what remains of my day off. By the way, a quick story about Reuben and my pigs before I get to the meat of the column, as it were.

I’ve got two pigs up here, both Gloucester Old Spots. They’re still young, about five months old, but are already about as big as medium-sized dogs. They’re called Smoky and Streaky, and are great fun. Reubs regularly jumps into their pen and runs about with them, a rural idyll that elicits a great deal of ‘aah’-ing from anyone who happens to be wandering past. Recently, Reubs, during an unguarded moment, rolled onto his back, at which point the pigs evidently thought, ‘Wey-hey, the canteen’s open,’ having only been weaned for a few months. They ran a good 20m, little trotters pumping, and launched themselves at what they took to be the milk-dispensing attachment. They clamped on with their needle-sharp teeth, and settled down for a good feed.

The snag in all this is that Reuben is a boy dog. The noise he made, a howl somewhere between outrage, agony and surprise, was pretty much the noise I think I would have made in similar circumstances. All this happened yesterday and I only stopped laughing about an hour ago.

Anyway, back to today. It’s quite a feeling having a day off, as we’ve been flat out, with plenty of diving going on, I’m pleased to say. Three commercial diver friends of mine from Bristol made the long drive up the country in a van. As they were three dodgy-looking blokes in bobble hats, crammed together on the front seat of a speeding Transit, the traffic magically scattered before them. The words ‘caper’, ‘heist’ and ‘geezers’ doubtless sprung to many a panicked mind as it tried to make sense of the approaching horrifying vision in the rear-view mirror.

We charged about the islands of Uist in my RIB. It was great stuff, with cuckoo wrasse so common that they were like vermin, lion’s mane jellyfish sweeping past, seals galore, pollack the size of ponies, and a drift dive to finish that I think could become a British classic. Incidentally, a few months ago, there was a very credible sighting of a great white at the entrance of the loch at the start of the drift dive. More of that in later columns, with any luck!

During the diving, we were all on twin-sets. Two of the three support divers (the other was on a rebreather) had their tanks inverted so that the pillar valve was at the bottom, and was positioned by their hips. This is a trick from the Armed Forces, and makes perfect sense. Why don’t we all do it, I wonder?

As I’m sure you know, the manifold of a twin-set has three valves. The ones on the pillar valves open and close the gas supply from the individual cylinders, and the other one sits in the middle and either isolates (when closed) or links (when open) the two tanks via a cross valve. Still with me? Good.

It’s a standard drill (allegedly) that should something go wrong with one of your cylinders while diving, you reach back and close the central isolation valve to use the remaining cylinder to breathe from. Reaching the valve is easy: all you do is dislocate one shoulder, or perhaps both, then scrabble wildly behind your head, like someone who is having the nape of their neck unexpectedly nuzzled by Anne Widdecombe.

Is it just me, or is it almost impossible to reach that isolation valve, or indeed your pillar valves, if you dive with a twin- or even a single set? I appreciate that the slob knob is supposed to solve this problem, but it’s just another thing to fiddle with. Why don’t we have our cylinders inverted like military divers? It means the valve won’t get bumped on overhead obstacles, it doesn’t hit the back of your head, and you can reach it easily in an emergency. Just a thought, but are we missing the blindingly obvious here?

Anyway, I need to figure out what to do with the remaining six hours of my day off. I have an inkling that a certain amount cylinder tinkering may feature strongly…