15. Lake Mac...Hit the bubbles

Lake Mcllwaine

Named after Sir Robert Mcllwaine, a former judge of the High Court and founder of Zimbabwe's soil and water conservation movement

Map of Lake McLlwaine

                                                The Spillway


A bunch of us used to drive to Lake Mcllwaine or Lake Mac 
as it was known - a man made lake twenty miles to the south 
west of Salisbury.There we would hire what we called Phut-
Phuts, small boats with petrol driven outboard motors. I fall 
short of calling the Phut-Phuts little speed boats because 
that would give them a certain kudos they simple don’t 
deserve. They were very basic affairs, aluminium hulls with 
a couple of wooden bench-type seats and tiny out board 
motors. Speed was not the Phut-Phut’s forte - at 2/6d an 
hour you wouldn't expect the Blue Bird - but neither was it 
speed the most important factor in “Hit the Bubbles” the 
water-borne game we had invented whilst on Lake Mac in 
a Phut-Phut.  When it came to “Hit the Bubbles", manoeuvrability was far more important. When it came to manoeuvrability the humble Phut-Phut was the nautical 
equivalent of the Polo pony. It could never beat a thoroughbred race horse in a flat race but it would run rings around it on a 
polo field. Likewise the Phut-Phut wouldn’t stand a monkeys 
against a high powered speed boat in a race across Lake Mac but in the game of “Hit the Bubbles” it reigned supreme.

                                           Boat on Lake Mac

Before we proceed with the “Hit the Bubbles”, I'd like to mention to any wannabe entrepreneurs out there, an amazing business opportunity just waiting to happen. Whenever ‘we’ us and our Rhodie friends, were sunbathing we never used branded sun lotion. Never. Rather we would save our money and douse our bodies with a homemade concoction made from equal parts of cooking oil and Metholated Spirits. Not only was it cheap but it worked. The cooking oil cooked your skin whilst the evaporation quality of the Meths cooled you down. If a process could be found to stop the odd incineration when a naked flame or lighted cigarette came in close contact with the home-made sun lotion I’m sure a fortune could be made.

Back to “Hit the Bubbles”. Before the game could commence there was a procedure we always adhered to which centred exclusively on booze. We would down a healthy number of “Castle” or “Lion” lagers...or an occasional bottle of wine or two. Our aim was to absorb enough alcohol to numb our faculties, i.e. muddle our moral compass, give us a devil-may-care-what-the-hell attitude...and lastly and possibly most importantly, if ‘selected’, anaesthetize ourselves against pain. 

We waited until the precise level of intoxication had been achieved and, after handing over our 2/6d to the owner of the fleet of boats, at least eight of us would cram into the said “Phut-Phut”, yank the starter rope, fire up the outboard motor and phut-phut our way out to the middle of the lake – hence the name ‘Phut-Phut’.  

Once we arrived in the middle of the lake all that was left to do was select the victim and “Hit the Bubbles” could commence.

The selection process was varied. 'Hick-Hack-Hock', 'Heads or Tails', 'Paper -Scissors -Stone', 'Pulling the shortest straw', in fact any procedure was used which would whittle the assembled down to one, ‘The Victim’.

Once The Victim had been identified he left the comparative safety of the Phut-Phut and entered the water. Depending on how much alcohol-induced-devil-may-care bravery he was feeling at the time it meant he either dived in voluntarily or was thrown in. This was always accompanied by much laughter, in some instances verging on hysterics. 

At this point The Victim would take in a lungful of air and duck under the water. Those of us in the boat would scour the immediate area for tell tale bubbles, a sure indication The Victim was about to surface. Once spotted, our trusty “Phut-Phut” would be steered over them...turning tightly to follow the line of bubbles if they suddenly deviated...here the Phut-Phut with its phenomenally tight turning circle came into its own.

This cat and mouse game of "Hit the Bubbles" was likened to Captain Ahab and his crew searching the sea for signs of Moby Dick’s blow-hole - I've been assured that ‘blow hole’ is the correct terminology -  and when The Victim’s head bobbed into view the appearance would be greeted with the salty cry, “There he blows!”  With a quick desperate gasp of air and with the Phut-Phut bearing down on him, The Victim would dip down under the surface again...and so it went on until our hour was up and we returned the Phut-Phut to the jetty...ah, we got our jollies from simpler things back then.

Actually, being older and hopefully wiser, on reflection I consider “Hit the Bubbles” not only a singularly pointless game but a decidedly dangerous one too. Though more by luck than design, I can categorically state without fear of contradiction, that no dumb animal was ever harmed during a game of “Hit the Bubbles”...well not when we played it...I believe that since its inception at Lake Macllwaine, “Hit The bubbles” has gone international and is now played in such places as far afield as Australia and Russia...though don’t hold me on that.