These Covid-19 lockdown stories just keep getting better and better. In the latest one, a lonely Scotsman, desperate to pay a conjugal visit to his lady love on the Isle of Mann, broke the travel embargo on the island by jet skiing across the stormy ocean to be with her, only to get jailed for his troubles.
28-year-old Dale McLaughlan from Irvine, North Ayrshire, had previously been given permission to work as a roofer on the island for four weeks in September. After self-isolating for 14 days, he met his girlfriend on a night out. After subsequent applications to return to the island had been rejected, McLaughlan, like a true chad, decided to take matters into his own hands, driving down to Whithorn in the South of Scotland, where he purchased a "water scooter" and set off on the 25 mile (40 km) crossing to the Isle of Mann.
Although the journey should have taken only 40 minutes in perfect conditions, weather, difficult seas, and the fact that he had never ridden a jet ski before, meant the crossing took four-and-a-half hours.
After arriving in the town of Ramsey, McLaughlan then walked the 15 miles (25 km) to his girlfriend's home in Douglas.
The following afternoon, when challenged by a suspicious police officer, McLaughlan gave his girlfriend's address as his own, then in the evening the couple went to two busy nightclubs. Following checks by officers, McLaughlan was then arrested and tried, getting four weeks in prison. Under the island's latest laws, only non-residents given special permission are allowed to enter the Isle of Man.
The Covid lockdown has killed many things, but it's good to see it hasn't killed romance...yet.
