Dolphin Address 06
April 1th 2007
Because from time to time an e-colie bug terrorises the drinking water of Fanore in the course of tides I have bought quite a few plastic five litre bottles of water. These come in handy in all kinds of ways once emptied. For re-use with tap water, to pee in when the weather is bad, as floaters for my boat, beheaded as a bin, to rinse cutlery in, cut open sideways and mounted on a wall for to harbour and tear off kitchen roll paper. Anyway, I have a stack of about 50 of them. I store them next in a rack in the shed. Many of them in re-use got dented. When the air pressure changes, which happens a lot here, four seasons being in a day, the plastic is pushed in or drawn outwards. Then the lot of them lay there cracking cosily.
In the meadows on the slopes of Fanore you see round pipe constructions from which the cattle get extra food. They consist of two rings of about two metre in diameter, connected by pipes about a metre long. The whole forms thus a round fence through which the cows can stick their heads to get to the food. The cattle are regularly moved to a different meadow so this mobile construction is moved with them. I never really wondered as to how this was done, until this morning I looked out of my bus window and saw the answer to an unasked question. Patsy McCormick put the thing on its side and walked it like a treadmill up the slope. Smart guys, these Fanorians!
For many a month now I have been proclaiming that either yesterday or today with my monofin on my feet and the WaterWing in my hands I wanted to try out a little theory of mine. The idea is that, if you go fast enough, air will give a resistance comparable to water. To test this I was going to dive off the Moher Cliff, 200 metre above sea level, to finally glide unharmed into a ‘landing’ on the water. I do hope a lot of people came to watch, since it is a beautiful day, this first of April.
Jan Ploeg, Fanore, April 1th 2007
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