Good day to you all, from a mighty relieved Dangerous Dave. I am still in Hoi An, but this is not necessarily what I am relieved about - nay, the fact that I am still anywhere, and still able to breathe Mother Nature's sweet, slightly polluted, air, is what has me feeling joyous (although probably not as happy as two others I met yesterday). But I exaggerate, as you will see - there's nothing quite like getting the reader interested though ;) So where did I leave off - at the tailor's? The next day - Thursday - I returned to the shop to pick up all my things, and then send them home...they should arrive in time for Christmas :( (Sorry if that's the first time you've heard it mentioned this year...I actually walked into one shop in Ho Chi Minh that had pan-piped Christmas carols playing in the background. Was a little strange). Anyway...I then made up my mind regarding diving, and decided that I really wanted to get in another couple before I returned to Britain's cold waters. So along to Cham Island Divers I went, and booked myself up for yesterday - the trip was to consist of two dives, about an hour and a quarter's boat ride away from the coast, off the shores of Cham Island (I think this is an old military base...or something similar). In between the dives we were to spend a couple of hours on the beaches of the island, and have a delicious seafood lunch. As it turned out, the lunch was indeed delicious, and very welcome, perhaps because of its delay: We went down for the first dive - I was with a German (name sounded like Dieter, but wasn't) and the owner of the shop, a Frenchman, while a Spaniard, let's call him Roberto, went down with Alex, a British trainee instructor. I complained on the surface that my BCD (buoyancy jacket) was leaking, but was told it was in my head. Ok. So down we go, promptly losing Roberto and Alex. Back up we pop, to see the boat that's meant to stick around for the first five minutes disappearing out of earshot - a string of profanities issued from the Frenchman's mouth, we regrouped and then down once more. Again we lose A&R, but this time there's no point in resurfacing, since the current is swiftly taking us along the reef, and swimming against it is fairly fruitless. So along we swim, with me taking big gulps of air - I'll admit it, all the commotion and seeming absence of professionalism may have left me a little anxious - and repeatedly topping up the air that was escaping from my BCD into my imagination wasn't helping matters. After only 25 minutes, half the time it would normally take to use up my air, my guage was into the red, and I signalled that I had to surface - the look of incredulation was apparent even through the Frenchman's mask, and after checking my guage for himself we surfaced. The boat was nowhere to be seen, and we bobbed along for about half an hour, with me orally inflating my BCD every 30 seconds or so to keep from going under - you ever seen that Eddie Izzard sketch about the lifejackets they provide on planes - the ones with the top-up valve?: "I don't know about you, but if I'm drowning in the middle of the ocean, I don't want a 'top-up' valve, I want a bloody 'stay-up' lifejacket!" I'm with you Eddie. Still, there was never really any danger of being swept out - on the surface where we had come up we could ride the currents back and forth, and we were always close to the land. Eventually the Frenchman...ok we'll call him Pierre, suggested going back down for another dive to see the 'Smurf Village' (Struempf in German? and stroumphe en francais), and I would use his alternate regulator - (this comes from the same tank as his own reg). We did so, and this was alot calmer, as the site was so much closer in to the rocks - the coral was absolutely stunning, and for the quarter of an hour that the air lasted between us, I was thoroughly happy to have gone down again. When we surfaced for the second time, we floated for another 10 minutes or so and then the boat turned up to pick us up. As it neared, however, Pierre asked the captain if they had already picked up Alex and Roberto, who should have surfaced a good twenty minutes ago at least. No, was the answer. More French profanities, and we boarded the boat. We then went around the island, once, twice, three times, in ever widening circles, everybody on board looking out for two divers bobbing up and down in the ocean. An hour of searching went by, and then another 30 minutes, and then the boat was pointed directly out to sea, along the path the current would have taken A&R had they been swept out. Another half an hour later and suddenly one of the American's on board (a couple of guys who had come to do some snorkelling) saw an orange distress pillar in the distance. As we drew nearer we could, thankfully, make out both divers. Exhausted, they clambered aboard and we headed back to the island. A memorable experience for Alex's hundredth dive. All the time we had been looking for them, I had been desperately hoping that we'd find them as soon as possible, but at the same time, I'd selfishly been thinking that it could have been me - a sobering thought. Nonetheless, after lunch, when it came to heading out for another dive, I had decided that I still wanted to go - the pro's would have learned from their mistakes, and we'd do an easy dive, surely? Hmmm. We headed out to sea again to drop off for a drift dive (you jump in, let the current take you to a prearranged spot where the boat picks you up). Roberto, understandably, stayed behind. So Pierre, Dieter, Alex and I jumped into the water, and were immediately swept to the stern of the boat, where we grabbed on to a rope to stop ourselves from being taken any further - the anchor line we needed to get to to go down to slower currents was at the bow. We dropped down a metre or two in visibility that was about the same, but even there it took all our strength and fins kicking to haul ourselves back to the middle of the boat. Up again we went, deciding that it wasn't worth it. I was just getting out of my kit when they stopped me and said we'd head to a little cove for a sheltered dive - 'No', I said, 'You guys go ahead, I think I'll give it a miss ;)'. They finally persuaded me to put it back on, and I'm really glad I did - the final dive of the day was stunning - a small current but so many different colours of coral, it looked like something out of the Life Aquatic With Steven Zissou (a Wes Anderson film that you have to see...if you like Wes Anderson films). We returned to the island to pick up those who had stayed behind, and then headed back to the mainland as darkness fell, enjoying the phosphorescence trailing from the boat. By the time I got back to my hotel room, I was so shattered I ordered room service and spent the rest of the evening watching Happy Gilmore. A bit of light entertainment was very welcome! Wow, what a mammoth journal entry. Today I'll be booking my ticket for Hue, a few hours further north, and then tomorrow I'll be leaving Hoi An's adventures behind! I hope you are all very well, as usual - leave me a message or email me some news soon! Much love, xxx