IN SEARCH OF SILVER LININGS

Harty tells a horrendous tale with comic overtones that he hopes may inspire us to cope better with the current situation.

- PETER HART

I was in Kerry last year when a video came through from our local Witterings WhatsApp group of Ian Whittaker prostrate on a beach in Morocco. Despite the smile, he was obviously in bad shape, but surrounded by windy mates, who, as is typical of our kind, were doing what they did best, which was to take the piss.

Ian is a builder by trade but performs at a semipro level and is out there leading the charge whenever conditions entice. A year on I caught up with him to find out more about an incident which was extraordinary on so many counts.

“A few of us wanted to do Moulay on a forecast so we kept 8 weekends open. Finally on the seventh, one popped up – force 8 and one day of swell. Funnily enough my wife Louise said ‘this one doesn’t feel right, I don’t think you should go’ – but Timo was booked so we thought ‘f*** it,’ we’re going!”

Their trip seemed doomed from the start. Their accommodation had fallen through and they ended up in a place with concrete beds. To soften the blow, colourful Irishman Paddy Lyner produced two bottles of rum. They all got horribly drunk …and awoke, feeling not the best, to find the well was dry and they had been locked in. A perfect storm was surely brewing.