Birvidik

"It's a wonderfully healthy lifestyle", crow the cruising fraternity with tedious regularity. No it bloody isn't. Think about it. Most cruisers are of, shall we say, somewhat mature years. We're not actually designed to live this long in the first place. As far as evolution is concerned our job is to reach sexual maturity, reproduce like rabbits, stay healthy long enough to bring the brats up and then get out of the bloody way, preferably by shuffling off and dying somewhere.

Following that design spec the human body starts to come apart at the seams from about 35 onwards. By the time it gets to average cruiser age bits are packing up or falling off it with alarming frequency. Just as the yotty starts the cruising life the insults and frailties to which the flesh is heir start to snowball. We're lucky, we started earlier than most.

To compound this the yotty and his, usually long-suffering, spouse take up a lifestyle where flexibility, stamina, strength, balance and endurance are all at a premium. They live in a confined space which has the unnerving habit of suddenly throwing itself about at all angles and often find themselves in situations which require all the previously mentioned desiderata as well as the application of large forces in limited distances at the same time as dangling from the top of a mast while supported by a piece of string.

One has to admire, though, the average yotty's single minded refusal to attempt even a tenuous grasp on reality. He (it's usually he) refuses to accept that he is anything other than in his prime and that his vast experience in the University of Life, combined with the sagacity of maturity more than makes up for the minuscule deterioration in physical and mental attributes that may, just possibly, have occurred during this extended learning curve. As anyone with an iota of sense would appreciate, this attitude, combined with the above-mentioned circumstances, frequently results in tears before bedtime.

Mr & Mrs Yotty throw themselves wholeheartedly into physical activity. The gym is full of sweating bodies at all hours. Yoga and pilates classes are oversubscribed and enthusiastically attended. Long walks up the sides of mountains are undertaken. Bicycles are ridden with gusto and a total disregard for Turkish roads and drivers. There has, inevitably, been an accompanying cornucopia of resulting medical catastrophes; hernias (no names, no pack drill), torn tendons and ligaments, frozen shoulders, dodgy knees, pulled muscles, crumbling teeth and haemorrhoids to name but a few.

Things are further exacerbated by the annual haul out and refit. During this time the boat is no longer in the water but balanced precariously on its keel. The only thing stopping it from crashing over on its side and causing a financial meltdown in the marine insurance sector is a ramshackle, Heath-Robinson arrangement of splintered, gnarled branches. These are jammed between the concrete and the hull by a series of rough wooden wedges which the marina staff enthusiastically knock into place with the aid of a 10 lb lump hammer and the fantasy that the wedge holds the testicles of a hedge fund manager. The whole rickety edifice is then, purportedly, held together by a random web of bits of old plank, supposedly acting as cross struts, knocked in with four inch nails.

Being on the hard, as this is known, has the advantage that the boat rarely starts throwing itself about at awkward angles. If it does, you're certainly in deep trouble and probably in Japan. Among its many disadvantages is the fact that you are working on uneven, unstable scaffolding about 3 metres above a very hard concrete floor. In positions such as this it has great survival value to be able to retain at least a rough idea of your physical circumstances in the short term memory. It is unfortunate then that short term memory is one of the first faculties to atrophy once past ones prime. It is staggering (literally) how many yotties completely forget that they're working on a narrow plank 3 metres up and blithely step backwards or absent-mindedly shuffle sideways off the end. Having made this rather fundamental error they then find themselves in need of another fast-fading couple of attributes, quick reactions and balance. These are frequently found wanting.

There are only about a third as many liveaboards here as usual, probably due in part to the visa fiasco of last summer. Nevertheless, there have, so far, been two broken ankles, one broken pelvis, one broken back, one severely crushed finger which almost resulted in amputation, two strokes and a suspected heart attack. Oh - and severe burns associated with an explosion in a power boat. Apparently it's not a good idea to switch on a vacuum cleaner when the interior of the boat you are about to vacuum is filled with acetone fumes. Luckily no-one else was injured when the deck popped off like a Pringles lid and the funnel toppled over in an imitastion of a giant statue of Buddha after a run-in with the Taliban.

We could have put all these down to coincidence and an unusual statistical blip, except for the fact that the marina already had two wheelchairs and several sets of crutches permanently available and there is an ambulance permanently stationed on site. This, cunningly, is attached to the local private hospital so that at the first sign of disaster the injured are whisked off to Ahu Hetman (of 4000 quid for a hernia op fame) before their next of kin can arrange to get them into the local State hospital or transfer their assets to the Cayman Islands. There must have been a history of sufficient accidents and medical emergencies to suggest it would be cost effective to keep an expensive ambulance and somewhat less expensive driver on site 24/7. I'd have loved to have seen their business plan when they asked for the loan to buy the ambulance. "It's unethical and time consuming to go out and cause accidents so we've set up in partnership with the marina. They give the yotties enough rope and we swoop in and pick up the pieces (and wallets)."

Just in case the yotties prove themselves too incompetent to take full advantage of the opportunities to kill and maim themselves, the marina generously helps things along with the service pods. These are the boxes from which the boats can draw water and electricity (always a good mix). When we were hauled out we were directed to a box that looked as though it had come off second in an altercation with the 300 tonne travel hoist. It leant over at a drunken angle, three legs bent and one missing altogether. The door was missing except for a few splintered edges still attached to the hinges. Assorted dials and gauges dangled forlornly from its bowels along with various odd bits of wire, some of which still had some actual insulation on them. The whole thing had the air of having been so overwhelmed with shame at its parlous state that it had committed Hara Kiri, The hairline cracks in the water pipes sprayed a fine mist over the tangle of electrical viscera. We plugged in anyway - it was the only one within reach.

Everything went fine until the next day when Liz, while climbing the ladder, grabbed hold of the swim platform with one hand and the stern guard rail with the other. Luckily, the AC belt she got neither killed her nor threw her off the ladder. After farting around with a meter for some considerable time, we discovered that the problem was caused by an induced current and the fact that the shore supply's earth connection was, somewhat counter-intuitively, neither an earth nor connected. I rectified matters by bonding the ship's AC earth to a large metal spike driven into the ground with a borrowed lump hammer. Well, that's what I should have done. What I actually did was dangle a wire into a puddle on the ground. Seemed to do the trick.

We go back in the water on the 21st April. Before then we're off away from the marina for a week. That should improve our chances of coming through unscathed - hot air ballooning across a high plateau has got to be safer than this.