409 Dive Log Australasia December 24

2024 Trafalgar Day Anniversary Lunch

by David Strike

Divers – and the diving industry - rarely have an opportunity to get together for purely social pur poses.It was enormously gratifying to be able to welcome a broad cross-section of the diving com munity to a recent lunch event, held at a venue overlooking Sydney Harbour, on Friday Oct 25th. Marking the post-Covid return of the diving com munity’s, ‘Trafalgar Day Anniversary Lunch’ - a formerly annual event commemorating the Battle of Trafalgar and the death of the British Royal Navy’s, Vice-Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson who, on the 21st October 1805, fell in the hour of vic tory over the combined French and Spanish fleets - the lunch might have been a few days late in its actual observance of the date, but what it lacked in attention to historically accurate detail, it more than made up for in camaraderie, good-fel lowship and high spirits. Held in the SoHo room of one of Sydney’s lead ing function facilities – the Doltone House, Jones Bay Wharf complex overlooking Sydney Harbour – the lunchtime event provided an opportunity to meet with one’s peers, renew old friendships, and enjoy convivial discussion about diving in a packed programme of talks, toasts, stirring ora tory and verse, lucky door prizes, and, of course, rum, in an afternoon dedicated to the social side of diving - and to fun - while learning a little about obscure Naval traditions. Like, for example, the fact that Chief Petty Of ficers wear three brass buttons on each sleeve of their jacket to deter them from wiping their nose on their sleeve ... or the belief held by some

women that rubbing a sailor’s dicky will bring them luck. (I should add – for anyone believing that the sailor was the obvious lucky one - that the ‘dicky’ in question, is the uniform’s blue collar adorned by three white stripes as worn by a Royal Navy sailor.) Although loosely following more traditional lines of a Trafalgar Day event, the ‘Almost-Trafalgar Day-Lunch’ still preserved several traditions. Each of the toasts (and there were many, taken in rum generously provided by Richard Taylor, who flew in from New Zealand to attend the event) had their origins in seafaring history. Beginning with the regular toasts to specific days of the week - each of which received its own sample sip - the Friday Toast, “A willing foe, and Sea Room”, was proposed by industry legend, Peter Fields; a man who, having sailed around Cape Horn, was singularly qualified to explain the origins of the tribute. Still considered to be the most decisive Naval Battle in all of history, it is customary for the Royal Navy to traditionally toast Nelson’s Immor tal Memory on each anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. Fittingly proposed by, Commander, Douglas Fal coner, of the Royal Australian Navy the traditional toast to, The Immortal Memory - one responded to in silence – was, in keeping alive that noble Naval tradition of ‘fair play’, closely followed by an acknowledgement of the efforts of the French and Spanish combatants in offering a toast to the defeated French Commander, Admiral Ville

Members of the diving community who attended

Representing Apollo, Mares, PADI and David Strike.

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DIVE LOG Australasia #409 - December ‘24