up the periscope

Pinnnng. Doooo. Pshhh.

An associate has a special ring tone on his phone when Rotto Bloggo calls: it's the sounds submarines make. We like being associated with these underwater noises.

Hopefully we don't sound like HMS Trenchant, though. In the Rottnest news of the month, the 5200-tonne British tin can became grounded off the beautiful island a dozen years ago.

See The Australian for the full marvellous story. But essentially the crew were stunned (like a dim herring) when they got far closer to the bakery than planned.

"They basically kept 200m depth and were on their way to Fremantle and were surprised when they ran into the continental shelf," says a quote in the story.

'Another former submariner said the British crew had no idea what had happened until they heard a loud scraping noise.

"The submarine was travelling at depth when it rubbed a sloping patch of sea floor," he said. "The crew took some time to actually work out what was going on."

Das Boot nearly became Das Rooted. Imagine if a nuclear sub sailed into Thomson Bay. Or beached itself next to the army jetty. If HMS Trenchant had been wrecked it would have become a marvellous dive site.

"Of all the branches of men in the forces there is none which shows more devotion and faces grimmer perils than the submariners." - supposedly Sir Winston Churchill.