The four intrepid divers stood at the harbour wall, hands on hips, feet planted squarely but slightly apart in the well known manly fashion.  They looked out to sea and all were smiling in anticipation of what was to come.

I, of course had been here on many occasions could only turn and look at the other three, Dave, Geoff and Colin and watch them.  We had all signed in the previous day, (the day we had arrived).  We all got our gear on and climbed into the rib, given the brief by the skipper and then slowly motored out towards our first dive site.

With the wind in our hair, (apart from dave), the sun shining down and the water lapping at the boats hull the skipper powered the boat up to full throttle, the rib leapt towards the horizen, the rufty tufty lads looked at each other and roared with laughter, slapped each other on the legs and assumed the manly like pose, gripping on for dear life as the boat launched itself over wave after wave....

Once at the dive site we did our buddy checks, I winked at the lads in my cheeky good humoured way, putting any doubts or worries at bay.  Geoff and Dave buddied up as did Colin and myself, after the de-brief from Shaun the mad skipper he informed us that we would all roll off at the same time when he had counted to three and powered off.  There were two other intrepid divers on board, a couple, didnt catch their names, well I did but have forgotten, so I will carry on with the story.

So here it was, count down to the rufty tufty dive at Grove Point....One, Two,Three in we rolled.  I would like to say that it was poetry in motion... It was'nt, it was the rufty tufty way, we all piled in, in a heap!!!  I could'nt get my fins down until the woman popped up between my legs, what will my wife say?  We had'nt waited until the boat had powered down, too eager to get into the water.

We got into our buddy pairs, last minute checks and down we went, smoothly as one unit until we touched bottom at around fifteen metres.  I sent up the smb, the practice in the pool had helped me immensley, so smooth, I smiled to myself in satisfaction, all that hard work bearing fruit, all the blood sweat and tears, the tantrums, and that was just Colin.  There we were 4 inches off the bottom, drifting lazily with the current, stopping here and there to look at the wildlife in the lobster pots, Colin taking photos of the captives, one of the crabs even tapped on the bars, Colin and I just looked at each other and pointed and smiled. 

Too soon it was time to go up and do our deco stop.  Once at the surface we signaled to skipper Shaun and we were back on the boat heading back to shore, and yes, we were slapping each other manfully on each others backs, joking and being rebellious towards our captain, at the end of the weekend Fathom and Blues knew not to mess with the rufty tufty club from Wirral.

We were disembarking from the rib when suddenly there was a cry, 'oh no, what am I to do'?  I looked round and saw the anguish on Geoff's face, I asked him what was the matter, he replied,  'my pony, i've lost my pony.  I looked and sure enough, it had gone.  We all started to look, knowing enough about search and recovery we all went back to where the boat was moored and split up, stirring up the sand and sediment, we found nothing but rocks and seaweed.

Suddenly, there was Best Buddy, hovering just above the waves, he spoke to us all, he said, "Lo, i come to you with great joy, look beyond yourselves and see, the white pony you search for serves a new purpose this weekend.  It is only small, but one day after you are all gone from this world, it will grow, it will grow beyond your wildest dreams into the biggest reef England will ever see" and with that, Best Buddy was gone.

We all looked at each other in awe, we knew that the loss of Geoff's pony was meant to be.

We all laughed manfully slapped our thighs did the second dive and then went to the pub.