It just says SCT on the cover, which perhaps is how Simon C Toomer’s friends know him.
I wasn’t aware that there had been a Volume 1 of Journeys To Moist Places, to be honest, but now I have a copy of the self-published follow-up, with a very blue photo of a scared-looking Napoleon wrasse setting the scene on the cover.
If you have read a lot of dive-club trip reports you’ll recognise the stream-of-consciousness style.
There is often more concern with the details of travelling than with the diving itself, and you can’t help feeling that if you knew the characters mentioned personally, it would probably be that much more hilarious.
Peterborough diver Simon, who declares himself a member of the GONADS (Golden Oldies Nautical Association of Divers), is certainly generous with the amount of material he has shared with us.
This even extends to a glossary of diving terms, though I can’t imagine any readers embarking on this book unless they were already deeply immersed.
His various accounts of club trips undertaken between 2002 and 2008 take in well-known inland sites Stoney Cove and Capernwray; Portland; Looe and the Scilly Isles in the
South-west; Anglesey; Oban and St Abbs on opposing coasts of Scotland; and a couple of further-flung adventures in the Red Sea and the Philippines.
There is no other linking theme, but if you have dived these places you may well identify with many of Simon’s observations.
The book gets off to an unpromising start with Capernwray, as various words seem to be missing from the text (though extra words have been inserted elsewhere to make up for this).
However, things get better as we hit the Red Sea, where it’s only punctuation that tends to be abandoned when in full flow.
As our Production Manager George remarked when he saw me reading this, at least the title should guarantee a reasonable number of hits online!
Steve Weinman
FastPrint Publishing
ISBN: 9781780352979
Softback, 368pp, £9.99
