around Babbacombe , in eight feet of water on a Spring evening , before heading to The Cary Arms to have a meal that consists of deconstructed things cooked six ways , with foam and a jus , accompanied by me talking loudly about how terrific I am .
This contrasts markedly with what I imagined cave divers classed as “ ideal ”. A long penetration ( stop it ), ideally a dance along the ragged edge of hypothermia , swapping regulators from one potentially lethal mix to another throughout , squeezing through gaps so tight that you have to wear special spandex undies , and emerging after four and a half days to share a tepid sausage with your mates who have been waiting for you in a pitch-black sump having beard growing competitions to pass the time ( steady now …. I refer you to my women cave diver comment above ).
And then I met loads of them . And they ’ re universally nice , and universally normal . They ’ re essentially a slightly odd version of you and me . I hope he won ’ t mind me mentioning this , but I did a talk at the Royal Geographical Society a few years back with Rick Stanton - he of the Thai cave rescue team . I ’ ve never , ever seen a man more nervous about doing a talk in front of a crowd . A lovely , decent bloke , he turned to me at the end , traumatised , and said “ How do you do that ? I mean , how can you possibly enjoy doing that ? It makes me so nervous ”. He seemed blissfully unaware of the irony of the fact that he ’ d just described being buried in an underwater gravel landslide , hundreds of metres into a freezing rock labyrinth / tomb .
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