Halong long time ago...

We are man. We will swim to the island. So we swim, the two of us, and leave the girls on the beach to worship.

A flurry of flying fish leap over my head as we swim. They only do that to avoid predators Paul says. Sharks, ha ha, we say and swim a little faster. A big black butterfly putters by and it gladdens me.

There is a fisherman at the island, floating in a basket. He waves cheerfully at us and I hope he is not fishing for sharks or jellyfish or sea monsters.

We are man. We will climb the island. So we shallow paddle our way into the rocks. The rock is limestone, pockmarked karst and is as forgiving as a razor blade carpet. It takes us 20 minutes to scramble up the 30 feet, every step painstakingly planned. We joke about making a film with the slowest chase scene in history. We wince our way across the ground, pissing and moaning like big hairy girls. We are big hairy girls. Seeing nowhere to do a big cliff jump (we are man etc) we admit defeat and descend as slowly as we climbed.

We hear explosions echo across the bay like distant thunder. The fishermen further out are using TNT to catch the fish, who am I to disagree. We swim back content, if a little footsore, and I daresay we emerge from the sea like a pair of youthful James Bonds.

There were lions and tigers and snakes, we say, but no one believes us.