Some more spring to mind:
- Belize, 1986: Naval Exchange pilot Bill M***** and Crewman Dave A**** have returned from Jamaica after Op Jubilee and there is no room in accommodation at APC so they are sent, at Liz's expense, to San Pedro to wait for the Gozome bird. They get bored and decide to go SCUBA diving. This decision was alarming insofar as Dave was never, err.. shall we say, the strongest swimmer. It got funnier as they related the story. When asked who had the most experience it was decided that Bill did because he started a course once and wore the gear in a pool. The conversation about how many weights to put on a weight belt was equally amusing but the bit that really cracked us up was when the dive master took them into a cave... and they followed...
I'm a diver myself nowadays and have spent a few hours below - my wife and I will never enter an overhead environment... because it's too bloody dangerous... My hat's off to you two... though I suspect it was more ignorance than courage that took you in there...
- Leaving the hotel bar in the hotel at the very top of the sand main street of San Pedro with John W***** one Saturday night and making our way back to the Green Turtle Hotel(?). Copious quantities of alcoholic beverages had been consumed throughout the day. I have no idea why but it was decided that we should "swim" back down the middle of the street back to our hotel.
- Being told by an Army major to get up and act like SNCO's while "swimming" the main street and telling him he'd better start paddling or he'll drown...
- Said Major giving up trying to make us behave like SNCO's and leaving us alone.
- The Tackle Box. Ahhh, the biggest and best Pina Colada's, (or Penis Enlargers as they were known), in the world. They came in a thick glass "Brandy Globe" that holds about 2 pints and cost $4 Belizean. The floor was sand with ships portholes built into it so you could see the water below - it was on the end of a wooden jetty.
- Working out that if you ask the barkeep about the weather just as he started to pour the Appleton's Rum you could get the better part of 1/3rd of a bottle poured before he stopped.
- Taking the resulting Pina Colada out the door at the back and sit watching the sharks, Bonefish, Turtles, Rays etc. in the pen at the back while getting "gently toasted".
- The huge burgers that we would get at Journey's End.
- Talking of burgers, the greasy "Chee'bugger"s we would buy at the Chogie Walla's snack bar in Aldergrove in the late 70's/early 80's. Heart attack in a bun... But they had an unusually attractive smell and taste...
- The impromptu air displays that, allegedly, would take place upon arrival at Journey's End on Sunday mornings at the behest of John and Jenny for the entertainment of their paying guests.
- Beach Volleyball, al la "Top Gun", at Journey's End.
- Sitting on the end of the jetty at Journey's End while ledgering a piece of dead fish 30 yards out and catching a nice Bonefish. What made it special was that it was right in front of a chap in a boat, with a guide and all the proper fly fishing kit who said "I'm paying $500 a day for four days for this and I haven't caught a thing. You sit there drinking a cocktail on the end of a jetty with a bit of chum on the hook and you're pulling them in"....
- Having just seen A|R's Cyprus post... Being up on Acamus Training Area preparing to bivvy up for the night on top of a particularly inhospitable hilltop that was comprised of bits of rock littered all over one great big piece of rock and finding that every fourth or fifth bit of rock had it's own resident scorpion.
