A fish out OF WATER

IT WAS A BIT OF A LUCKY DIP WHEN COLIN HAD TO REVISIT THE DRAWER THAT HELD HIS SWIMMING TRUNKS FROM DECADES PAST!

- COLIN HOGG

I don’t recall learning to swim, but, like many New Zealanders, I grew up within a sniff of the ocean and swimming must have seemed like second nature. Also, the truth is I probably did have lessons, even if I don’t remember them.

When I was little, my family would regularly take picnics at nearby rivers, where we kids would be inserted loosely in tyre tubes and dropped into the current to float down to where one of the dads was standing midstream, waiting to scoop us up before we could float off to an uncertain future round the river bend and far beyond.