I still find it hard to believe. A Facebook freediving friend of mine, Eric van Riet Paap, whom I only met once, last year in Doolin, has been harping on his mighty strings, resulting in taking my breath away with the crème de la crème, the state-of-the art, the flagship dancing dolphin in monofin waterscape, a genuine TRYGONS carbon fibre lightweight! For free!!
I’m not good in melody, but I saved you the lyrics of the spontaneous lines that welled to my lips:
It came in cardboard
sealed like a vault
the postman fathered a Christmas grin
when I did a summersault
That wasn’t too wise. Ever since I overstrained my back at the end of April, clearing the rockery from te meadow, I’ve had sciatic pains flashing up and down my legs, often crippling me and sometimes practically disabling me to walk at all. But it takes a lot more to keep me from entering the brine, in fact it’s an utterly welcome environment, for the arms of gravity take the weight off my legs, every deeper step ads to relief and a whole different set of muscles are very able to propel me. Besides, I’ve always been good in doing things lying down.
And as if I was not yet amply wrapped by this singular favor also the universe chipped in. A few weeks ago I wanted to go camping on Inisheer and thought my Jack Wolfskin super light 1.5 person up-in-a-flash tent was on Willem’s attic. It wasn’t, I could have saved us rather a bit of effort. It was under his bed. But the attic turned out to be a treasure cove from the thoroughly forgotten days I was rich, about a decade ago. There were several plastic bags, bulging with goodies too voluminous to keep in the van, like a wetsuit I never used. But what was really sticking out was the waterwing I made of glass fibre and epoxy,
which was lying on top of a monofin carry bag, with even a monofin still in it, albeit somewhat nibbled by the teeth of time. So now the carry bag is an absolute hurray item as it safely houses and transports my precious new monofin.
The day before yesterday I maidenswam the mono. I had tried it on in the house and found it hard to get my bare feet in. On the slipway however with a touch of shampoo I slipped in like Cinderella. After a few strokes I even found the foot-pieces a bit loose and slightly uncomfortable in full-stern. As I was pretty certain they would not fit my three mill socks I dived into my sock-archive and choose a hitherto unused pair of two mill. Also I bought a shoehorn. It was no easy job to get into. My left foot got in with a struggle, but my right foot only got in with my friend Joy kneeling on the blade to stop it and pull my foot towards her. But I did get in! Note to self: buy one mil socks!
But once I was waterborne and rather tossed about by wind-blown waves I became aware of the command this Trygons gives me. I braved waves and countercurrents, making progress dwarfing my boldest expectations. The propulsion I have now I do have to work for, it doesn’t swim by itself, after two hours I was pretty knackered, but doing miles with Dusty never was easy and now, to both our surprise&delight, I could sometimes keep up within the bends her figure swimming.
I’m on speed with one mighty flip-flap, then dive to the bottom, lifting my upper body by pushing myself off and up against the waterwing, then by gravy-drive and wing-pull glide under a steep angle, monofin submerging in humpback mode, followed by a wham-b-ham slam and I’m winging across the weed fields as weightless as my swiftness grants me trajectory effect. I am blissed out by this unexpected side-effect, an increase in neutral buoyancy. Maybe I should adapt my weight belt, figuring that if I can do with less, having less mass to move, I can put even more energy into propulsion.
But back to now. It’s not only the significant increase in speed that is impressing me, it’s the entire quality of swimming. Maneuvering is so more sure-footed as the mono can be fine-tuned from a slight suggestion in bearing to a radical 180 or a series of madcap hip-hops all over to excite the dolphin. It’s even just the potential that is under the hood of this Ferrari among monofins, that inspires confidence in the wet dimension.
In my career as dolphin-aficionado, which spans 28 years, there are milestones like my first painless monofin, my first effective WaterWing, my swim with Pilot whales at Tenerife, my first encounter with Fungi, etc. And without a doubt I can write this monofin opens the door to a whole new existence. It feels like being granted Ocean Residency, a passport for the third dimension, having become a shareholder of the wet domain.
Thank you, TRYGONS, for a monofin that is so much more than for free!