island li f e those who enjoy sailing are either comfortably retired, self-employed or in need of psychiatric help
Outdoor Behaviour by Barry Mathias
In May, there are definite stages in the art of personal renewal: there is the balmy wonderment that the rain has actually stopped, the cautious reacquaintance with blue skies and sunshine, the wholesale abandonment of decorum, and we Islanders become summer people for the next five months. Everything from now on must be outdoors! We eat outside, regardless of ferocious mosquitoes, uncooperative barbecues and curious tourists; we labour in the garden, battling with instantly renewing weeds, and we engage in activities we euphemistically call games, unless we want to impress people… in which case, we call them sports. Golf is one of those sporty games nobody indulges in for fun: it's a solemn, incomprehensible ritual. Even though the "players" use terms such as "play the ball," the word "play," in terms of having fun, has nothing to do with this activity. Maurice Baring said: "There is a vast difference between games and play. Play is for fun, but games are deadly serious, and we do not play them to enjoy them." Golf is an outdoor pursuit requiring unlimited funds, low blood pressure and the correct uniform (modeled on a combination of French couture and Crocodile Dundee). In the manicured wilderness of the golf course, it is necessary to be athletic … in the getting on
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and off the electric-powered carts, and in the searching for lost balls. Occasionally, there is the chance to swing a club. It is one of those games that is best played with the local doctor, or with complete strangers, neither of whom we need to apologize to after a missed putt: the doctor is familiar with the anatomical details, and strangers might not remember us. Sailing is another popular, all-consuming, outdoor pastime around the Islands. Those who enjoy it are either comfortably retired, selfemployed or in need of psychiatric help. Who else would spend thousands of dollars on a craft they take out only occasionally in the summer, and spend the whole winter repairing at further exorbitant cost? A sailing boat encourages us to impersonate Captain Blythe, reinterpret the rules of the sea, and discover the doubtful joys of the mechanical failings of the "head." Boating, which incorporates the use of a powerful engine, is another all-weather delight. With a multi-decibel engine, we can travel at wave-bashing speeds over miles of identical water, scare the sardines out of the orcas, and occupy many wind-blown hours that could have been happily spent on a delayed ferry or in a Victoria traffic jam. For the land-locked, there is always tennis, a game that defies mathematical logic: one point equals 30 points and the next equals 10 points making 40? Players used to wear dazzling white clothes to blind their opponents, but with the development of sunglasses, clothing has changed considerably, revealing those parts of our bodies normally kept hidden, as a way of distracting the opposition. It also accounts for the game's popularity with audiences. Tennis players have a penchant for "love all," Robinson's lemon barley juice, and an ability to jump the net if they win. This exertion is discouraged for short men and those with family ambitions. There are many other examples, perhaps for another article? What we need to remember is that the "outdoors" is a wonderful concept … as long as we have the "indoors" to come back to.
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