A recently discovered photo taken off Sanibel Island, Florida, in the late 1970s. I am diving off a motor boat to collect a large whelk from the bottom, having just consumed a delicious cheeseburger ("one of the best I've ever had!") at the Old House on Cabbage Key. My friend Sefton grips the railing to steady himself. Note my tan, blonde hair, red bathing costume, and large diving knife with which to fend off sharks. My family wintered on Sanibel for 10 years, staying in a large house off Periwinkle Way. We even spent a few summers there, which is not to be recommended due to heat and humidity. On Sanibel I learned to drive a moped, tease alligators, fish for tarpon and sea trout, hunt for coral snakes, and to stay away from sharks and stingrays. One winter I observed throngs of young people sifting through the seaweed on a remote beach, only to be told they were looking for washed-up marijuana from a drug smuggler's boatwreck just offshore. I have not visited Sanibel since 1985. I suspect like most beloved places of my youth it has changed--and not for the better. I view the prospect of visiting after all these years with a certain trepidation.
Age has been kind to you Admiral.
ReplyDeleteI think the best you can do, if you go back, is to appreciate the things that haven't changed and the memories that they carry.
ReplyDeleteI certainly know what you mean. However, recent internet images of the place look fine and, fortunately, beauty spots tends to be preserved, come hell or high water; it's the ordinary, simple, little corners of my home town that I should sorely miss.
ReplyDeleteYou must have a cool photo shop program to allow you to post your pics this way! Excellent photo btw! You truly are a man of adventure!
ReplyDeleteSilly old Admiral; this is clearly Biggles diving in to save Algy from the giant squid. I do not know the boy left in the boat, but I am confident that his relationship with the future fighter ace is entirely platonic.
ReplyDeleteQuite possibly the most pompous posting thus far. When the Admiral is finished playing make-believe, perhaps he can return to playing dress-up again for our amusement.
ReplyDeleteStick to what you know...ponce.
That ass Blair is mistaken; your picture clearly shows a young Evelyn Waugh leaping overboard to escape the critical jibes of an improbably beautiful and youthful Cyril Connolly.
ReplyDeleteConnolly will also have been baiting Waugh about Lancing.
If this is indeed you, Admiral, I am concerned about the apparent lack of genitals. I am sure there is a reasonable explanation.
ReplyDeleteRe some of the above comments: I took the picture to be symbolic of a couple of kids on holiday at the location. But what is it with the modern world that such a picture has to become subject to sly references to homosexuality which were probably wholly unintended by the artist? Moreover, it strikes me as most odd that the modern world's Parliaments have chosen not just to permit buggery but to provide for it to be regulated contractually by civil partnerships but, at the same time, moderns cannot resist lude references to the 'relationship' between Biggles and Ginger? Whatever else: don't dis' Biggles in my presence or I'll smack your ear.
ReplyDeleteYep: I can't even spell 'lewd'.
ReplyDeleteLiving on Florida's Gulf coast, I am well familiar with Sanibel.
ReplyDeleteBest description was given by Yogi Berra:
"Nobody goes there anymore. There are too many people there."
I like this blog. So you're some sort of fantastic lifelong bachelor? Mannerbund?
ReplyDeleteI live in Florida...and there is nothing as wonderful as life on the beach. It's always unexpected. Thanks for blogrolling.