"How long can you tread water..."

Over the Bank Holiday weekend we took the smart Roadster and my friend's MGF over to France. First stop Le Mont St Michel. Nice place, trop cher at €5 per half pint of 1664 but certainly has entertainment value.

It's like this. MSM is perched on an island in the sea and you can't drive onto the hill. So, you park at the end of the causeway, on the beach in various parking areas - P0, P1 -> P6. These areas are just below high tide level depending indeed upon the height of the tide. The nice people put up a sign indicating when the next tide is and which areas are going to get flooded. Last Friday it was "P0" at 17:30.

They also provide a service to prevent people from drowning. The tide can come in at the speed of a galloping horse and as such, if you're on the beach at 'high tide - 5 minutes' then there's strong possibility that you're fish-food. This service is in the form of a man standing on the ramparts with a whistle, blowing it madly and waving his arms. When the people are ½mile away then it serves no purpose at all. But, hey-ho, you can't sue when you're playing Whist with Davy Jones can you?

At 17:25, the battlements filled up with sightseers eagerly straining seawards to see who was the strongest swimmer and the little French Referee blew for all his worth - "Mon Dieu, get orf zee beach!", followed with translations in English, German and French.

A well dressed couple elbowed their way to the front and nearly pushed me into the sea. "How stupid those people are, can't they see the tide coming in? Don't they know what time it is?". I have to admit to wanting to shout over the beach "What part of You're Going To Die have you not understood?"

I tempered my enthusiam and looked towards P0.

"Is that your Merc?"