This beautiful and hot Sunday morning in July, we rose early and went to enjoy a swim in the sea with the children. In order to enjoy the clean peace of Larnaca bay, we took the yacht from the marina and anchored offshore with 1 metre of water to spare under the keel.William was in first, exclaiming at the refreshingly cold water (it was now about 8am) and delighting us with his underwater swimming. Then went the children and Andreas, I followed and it was glorious.Then we heard them.I told the children to get by the dinghy, "Why Mum?" they whined in unison.I snapped "Do as you are told" and they were infected by the fear in my voice.3 Jet Ski's approached us very fast, so fast that I no longer felt safe with them in the dinghy and made them scramble up the side of the yacht and back on board.
The 4 people on 3 jet ski's rode around the boat, making waves in an otherwise total calm, this of course set the yacht rocking. The noise and fumes were awful, the drivers raced around for a while doing wheelies, pretty out of control. I was amazed at how bumpy they looked.... not good for the back I thought.We thought they would go away, and were impatient to get back in the water, but could not risk it whilst they were still doing their out of control pirouettes and races.Disgruntled, we were all muttering at them and the kids were singing silly derisory songs that they didn't hear because of the din.
Then they shot off out to sea. Wonderful. We all plunged back into the water.
No...to good to last, here they come again... panic, back on board.
They shot round the boat again, causing waves, smell and noise. We thought that they must run out of fuel soon, but no.......they started racing again.
Seems they needed an audience for their antics by the amount of posing and childishly dangerous lunges and passes they got up to.
I got the camera out to shoot the evidence when my ire became such that I vowed to come straight home and winge about them online. So here we are.
Then one of the passengers jumped into the water by the buoy line, this was a cue it seems for a game of 'toreadors' with the boy as the bull, then 'chicken on the water'
At one point I thought they had killed one of them when there was an almighty bang and an empty jet ski. How it didn't at least injure someone badly I will never know, but my camera is not a video, so judge for yourselves below.
People have been killed in Cyprus.
I am not a killjoy, but really there should be places where jet ski users can go to drive these machines that is NOWHERE NEAR anyone else.
The line of swimmers buoys is not far enough. I have heard of tourists being told to get inside the buoys as that is ' their area'. Not so. Sometimes the water is still shallow enough to stand at those points, and people like to swim in deep water.
Surely there is enough sea out there for everyone? Obviously not, we went back into harbour and wondered if maybe a night swim would be safer and more peaceful.
Click on the images to enlarge them
