Aquatic cellphones

When we arrived at Mountain Sanctuary Park the wardens told us that they were sad to inform us that there had been petty theft of late and should take care of our valuables. This was sad news indeed because we had never worried about really locking things in the past when leaving camp on hikes. Oh well, what the heck, there is crime everywhere so out in the mountains is no different. We were not about to let that spoil our long weekend camping.

What a great weekend it was too. Our whole family was there, Kirk and his girlfriend, Diane; Steven and his wife Chantal; and Loren and her husband Paulo. There were sounds of laughter and joking well into the night and on one occasion a quite noisy game of hot coal tennis. I couldn't believe it. Steven and Paulo playing tennis with their bare hands with coals from the fire. By this time Shirley and I were in bed when we were awoken by their antics. Paulo couldn't stop saying all weekend that it had been a long time since he was last sent to bed!

Because of the theft warnings I decided that instead of leaving my brand new cellphone in camp I would carry it with on our hike, so I promptly put it in its pouch on my swimming costume waistband. Now the great thing with Mountain Sanctuary Park is that whilst hiking there are beautifully clear rivers to cool off in. I always love this because it revives you for the next leg of the hike. Today was no different and after wallowing in the crystal clear water for the second time Loren looked at me horrified and cried out that I was wearing my cellphone. Steven and Paulo promptly grabbed the phone from me shouting that we must get the battery out quick. By now the phone was dripping water from out of every conceivable orifice.

I must admit to being quite downhearted because this was one of the new generation phones with Windows mobile and an inbuilt GPS. With all this technology I was not confident that drying the phone out was going to revive it. On the way back to camp water was still dripping out of the speaker hole. The phone was placed in the sun on the dashboard of Loren's car and left for two days. I was scheming ways to make a claim from insurance without blatantly admitting that I swam with the phone; things along the line of we were camping and as you know there was a lot of rain (which there really had been) and the phone got wet etc.

When it was suggested that the phone must surely be dry and that I should try it I shrugged and said it was a pointless exercise and that they could mantle it. There really should be a word like mantle, I mean if you dismantle something surely you must be able to mantle it when putting it back together. Anyway Steven and Paulo took up the challenge of re-assembling the phone, switched it on and words fail me as to how I felt when I saw the screen light up and then proceed through the Windows start up phases. Although I had backed-up information before I left home I was dreading having to transfer the information over to my old PDA which I had been using before getting my new all-in-one phone. The relief in now not having to do this was akin to winning the Lotto. Well maybe not that akin but you know what I mean.

I wonder if I could claim costs and submit an invoice for advertising if I mention the type of cellphone? Well anyway even if I can't I'll tell you the make just in case you too want to swim with your phone or drop it in the toilet like I've heard many people have done. It's a ..... wait for it ...... drum roll please ........ HTC P3300.

I'm now going to be lazy and attach a whole bunch of photos of the weekend and not really say much about them. In fact I'm not going to say anything about them I'm just going to attach them and you can look and enjoy and hopefully be very envious of where we were this last long weekend.