"Sherlock you can't wear that stupid thing. " Sherlock and John trudged down the beach. John was wearing a full body wetsuit, Sherlock, his coat and some board shorts.

"Protection John. "

"What do you mean?" Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"From the things in there."

"The ocean? "

"I prefer to think of it as 'the great abyss.' But if you insist on calling it ocean, I can't stop you." Sherlock nearly tripped on his coat, kicking up a bit of sand. "Horrid place."

"But there's nothing to be afraid of." John walked towards a rack of surfboards. Sherlock put his face in his hands.

"Have you heard of the deadly Austrailian box jelly?"

"Of course."

"Well?" John laughed.

"Well what, we're in England."

"Irrelevant. Someone could have let them loose."

John shook his head and picked up a surfboard on the rack.

"Our students will be here soon. We have to prepare."

"They won't know the difference if we can swim or not. Tourists."

John handed Sherlock a board and went towards the water. Sherlock didn't budge.

"Aren't you coming?"

"I believe in visual learning."

"But you have to teach other people."

"Then I believe in learning by doing. Really John, I don't know what you find so complicated about the whole matter." Sherlock took a board down and sat on it.

When the students did arrive, John had to take them both. They were a nice old couple, visiting from Austria. The old man kept frowning at Sherlock. Perhaps his outfit offended him.

"In my youth I alvays vant surfing." The old man nodded.

"Alvays." His wife nodded too.

"Er, well. That's great. I love surfing." John said. "Let's get started."

"You are old for this job no? Maybe he is better?" The wife poked John and pointed to Sherlock. John smiled like a frog being stepped on. Sherlock smirked.

"I'm sure he is more than fine." The old man pointed at John's forehead.

As John was giving the lesson (which consisted mostly of him helping the old man into his rental wetsuit that wasn't exactly made for spherical objects) he noticed something strange happening up on the beach. For whatever reason, Sherlock had decided to pick up each individual surfboard and launch it across the sand with a grunt worthy of the Vikings. The image of him chucking the board across the sand in his rippling coat and board shorts was unique, to say the least.

"He is training?" The old woman asked.

"For the Nordic reenactment league." She didn't catch John's sarcasm.

"Ah, good man, like history yah?" John smiled his frog-smile again.

"Of course." Sherlock grunted as one of the boards thumped into the sand dangerously near where they were standing.

"I don't like him." The old man shook a chubby finger in Sherlock's direction. The old woman pushed him.

"You just jealous Vilhelm." The old man sniffed and shifted his feet.

As they were about to enter the water (after half of the half-hour lesson had passed). Sherlock stopped them.

"Wait." Smiling and bowing to the old woman, he held up two surfboards that, as far as John could tell, were identical to the ones he already had.

"These are better. I did some aerodynamic testing up here on the beach."

"What are qualifications?" The old man said. He nearly growled. Sherlock raised an eyebrow thoughtfully.

"They tried to give me the FIeld's medal four years ago, the Nobel in physics six, er, I taught at the London Academy of Science for three years before recruited by the American company Lockheed-"

"I don't like American company."

"Vilhelm. Why are you being like this?"

"Ve are leaving Natalie." He grabbed her by the wrist and they began to waddle away.

"But I do not vant to leave."

"But I am paying." As they disappeared into the sand, Sherlock frowned.

"What went wrong?" John rolled his eyes and tossed his hands up. He had spent the last fifteen minutes of his life squeezing an old Austrian man into a wetsuit, and now he wasn't going to be paid. And the man had taken the wetsuit.

"Well, time to be off." Sherlock said. He nearly bounced. John narrowed his eyes.

"You did it on purpose."

"Naturally. Just by looking at them you could see that in the past she had had several affairs with younger men, and he had-"

"Shut up Sherlock." Sherlock shrugged. They returned to Baker St.