Issue 2 Rob's World: Wraysbury is a Tropical Dive Site from the Archives of the London Diver Magazine

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21 November 2024

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ISSUE 2 ARCHIVE - ROB'S WORLD: WRAYSBURY IS A TROPICAL DIVE SITE
THE ANNOTATED¹ INDISPUTABLE² SCIENTIFIC³ PROOF⁴ WITH FOOTNOTES. You love Wraysbury. Yes, you do. You might roll your eyes at the mention of it, but it was probably you that did the mentioning. You might say its name with a wry tone, but it was probably at the end of a sentence that began: "Well, another day diving at". You're always there and you've never left without a smile on your face, because Wraysbury is a tropical dive site. You love it, and here is the logical⁵ scientific and philosophical⁶ proof why. Premiss 1 – Child Labour Statistics⁷ show that since real fires were banned in London, due to homeowner complaints regarding the chirpy cockney chipperness of singing chimneysweeps, 92% of child labour is confined to tropical countries and paper rounds. Those kids that collect your money at Wraysbury – are they delivering newspapers? I think not. Premiss 2 – Visibility Wraysbury has on occasion been known to suffer from a slight deficiency in visibility, with the word nano being prefixed to the more traditional measurement of metre. However, anyone that has dived on a tropical reef at the wrong time of year will have witnessed the exact same effect. And let us not forget some of the more adverse tropical weather patterns, such as hurricanes and storms, which cause soil and other opaque matter to get caught-up in the rain run-off and clutter up the water. Wraysbury is merely prone to frequent, fecund coral blooming and monsoon rains. Premiss 3 – Depth Any novice diver will tell you that light loses its colour with depth⁸. Coral, therefore, looks more colourful the closer to the surface it is. Plus, the more light there is, the more coral there is. Wraysbury, in most places, is no more than 10 metres deep. This is because it is made up of reef.
Premiss 4 – Temperature In the summer, the surface temperature at Wraysbury reaches the twenties. This is warm enough for most divers to comfortably wear a wetsuit. Obviously in Sharm⁹, in the summer, almost everybody is in a wetsuit, however in the winter, the dive guides that aren't wearing a drysuit are filled with a fearsome envy for those that are. This is the same as Wraysbury in the winter. Premiss 5 – Aquatic Life Unfortunately, the effects of climate change are to be felt as much in Wraysbury as they are in the Caribbean. Coral bleaching has lead to dramatic decreases in the amount of aquatic life that reefs can sustain, with larger predators such as sharks being as hard to find in many parts of the Gulf of Mexico as they are in the Heathrow area generally. The increase in tourism too has had severe, adverse consequences for reef and port-a-loo alike. Premiss 6 – The Thistlegorm Few people are aware¹¹ that due to an unrealistic time anomaly, the Red Sea's most famous piece of metal is actually named after the sunken taxicab in Wraysbury, and the two have much in common. Both wrecks are surrounded by unexploded ammunition¹², parking at either site can become tricky during the summer months, and due to unforeseen historical developments, neither vessel had much direct contribution toward the outcome of the second world war. Conclusion – Wraysbury is a tropical divesite. Given the evidence, only the most rigorous of lunatics or tedious of sceptics could possibly deny that the reason for the love of London's Dive community for Wraysbury is because it is in fact a tropical paradise. Such scientific research is sure to have profound practical application from divers requiring buddies all over the south east, and has in fact been applied for time immemorial by overly positive instructors of the type that uses the word ‘fun' like it was a swear word and they have Tourette Syndrome. So next time you feel the urge to be disparaging, think again and remember that the entire scientific establishment is against you¹³. Plus they have cheesy chips¹⁴.
Footnotes 1 – ie. with footnotes. 2 – If you're Dan Brown or Gillian McKeith perhaps. 3 – See Note 2. 4 – See Note 3. 5 – See Note 4. 6 – See Note 5. 7 – Made up by me, just now. 8 – Provided, that is, that the multiple choice options for the question "Light loses its colour with _____" are: a) depth, b) washing above 40°C, c) age or d) Adam and the Ants. 9 – Just because Sharm is outside the tropics, doesn't mean it's not tropical¹⁰. 10 – OK, that's obviously not true, but the streets of Sharm are a metaphorical jungle and what's a desert if not a tropical rainforest made of sand? 11 – Because I just made it up. 12 – Except for the taxicab at Wraysbury. 13 – See Note 2. 14 – With brown sauce.
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