Meanwhile our hero has remained in Manly.
A couple of days ago he met up with a very old (and ex-girl) friend of his called Sam who has emigrated here and it turns out lives about 50 yards away from Boris. A few beers were shared over the usual reminiscences.
Then on Friday night Boris and he chartered a motor boat, less a gin palace more a lager hut, as Boris had organised a swim for the Saturday and they needed a support boat. After a few beers in the city they settled down for the night on the boat moored in the middle of the harbour.
This swim was from the Harbour Bridge to Manly (11km) against the tide.
Fortunately the swim was not to be done all in one but rather by a relay team of four. With a heinously early start (0630) to make the safety briefing and pick up the rest of the team (and following a quiet night in the alcohol stakes (ergo insomnia)) our hero was less than well rested for the start of the race.
Fortunately Boris was swimming the first leg. This would have been less hairy had the QEII not come into harbour at that moment and gone straight through the course.
Unfortunately on the eighth leg (they were swimming 20 minute legs each) Ed was attacked by jellyfish and had to be dragged from the water. Gimli was first to offer to piss on the weals (a proven curative) but Ed politely and inexplicably declined.
A quick check of the surrounding waters revealed they were in the midst of a enourmous swarm of the bastards (known as Blue Bottles) and so the decision was taken to keep the swimmers out of the water and motor to the other side of the swarm. This turned out to be 300 metres from the finishing post.
The boys jumped back in the water and completed the course together. As they made their way up the beach they were mobbed as heroes by the organisers and forced to give a number of interviews to the local press.
After about 5 minutes however guilt overcame them and they 'fessed up to the organisers.
However once it had become clear that everyone (bar one very brave girl who was named the winner having swum the entire way on her own) had chickened out at some stage some shrewd arguments were deployed (along with the 7' tall Jake) to persuade the officials that they should not be disqualified. Eventually after consultation they agreed that as they had been out of the water for the shortest possible time to avoid injury they were placed second and awared silver medals, electric toothbrushes and a sponsors' bag. (Journalistic intergrity prevents us mentioning that the sponsor was Men's Health magazine)
After these triumphs Gimli went out with Boris and chums in Manly and about halfway through the night all the girls in the group came and apologised to him. Now this caused no end of consternation as it is of course normally him doing the apologising but it transpired that they thought he was another of Boris's friends from home and therefore a love rat rather than the charming loveable rogue that he in fact is. Of course percerptive fellow that he is he had not noticed they were being all aloof to him and didn't know what they were apologising for.
Of course through some very careful use of words (without ever lying) he was able to give the impression to the local girls that he had actually been part of the swim team that came second rather than just drinking G&Ts on the support boat...
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