Stodge doesn’t like sitting still! never has, probably never will. Most holidays for the last 25 years have been ‘active’ – walking, skiing, running, climbing, orienteering, canoeing, mountain biking. At 16 I remember managing to lever water skiing lessons as a late birthday present out of my mom and dad who were then forced to watch me cruise up and down all week….. sitting on an beach? ½ a day playing sand castles with Holly or perhaps ½ a day with a good book and then I’m bored; and start looking for mountain bike hire, somewhere to run or somewhere to visit.
Because of my back problems this year we decided to backpack around Croatia (introduce Holly to the joys of not knowing where you will be going or staying next) where I could enjoy the food, sit back and relax or do as much watersport as I felt I could manage, interspersed with a little medieval town trundling and a few ice creams.
I found on the first day that lots of swimming was out, the buoyancy of the super salty water of the Adriatic pushing my feet up and curving my spine just the ‘wrong way’ particularly for breaststoke, niggling at my back. Snorkelling was OK though so I mooched around the shallows following fish for a couple of days, getting paddled around by Cath and Holly in canoes and trying to get through a thick volume all about the history of D Day.
After a few days of Island hopping from Dubrovnik to Miljet and finally to Korcula we finally ended up squirrelled into a nice cheap apartment so we could spend some money on water sports lessons, windsurfing for Holly and Cath, and sailing for me. http://www.oreb-sailing.com/hr/
I’ve never sailed, never so much as set foot on a sailing boat of any size before even for a ride. Its about the only major sport I can think of that I have never at least tried once.(even tried fishing once – got very bored!) We found a sailing school (Oreb sailing) and I booked in for a 6 hour taster course in 3 sessions, expecting to be getting very wet in a little dinghy of some sort in the harbor. I did wonder when I was asked to meet at the end of the pier what sort of boat we were going to be learning in and was gobsmacked when a full sized 4 birth (SCHOLTZ 22) sailing boat putted round the headland with our instructor for the first lesson. http://www.oreb-sailing.com/en/scholtz22newsailboat
After running out to an island on the engine we first helped dock bow first with an anchor line out behind (see I am getting the lingo already) before the lessons started properly with a mooch around the yacht learning about main sails, lazy jacks, rolling jibs, various ropes, pulleys and lots more after my head became full of nautical terminology.
All the ropes are color coded and only a few are needed once you are going so it didnt take long.
Soon we were folding the anchor away and sailing off into the wind. Our instructor Miro (only 20) an ex Croatian national squad member soon had us skimming through the waves with the boat leant right over, hair dangling (well the other two dangled) as he recounted his claim to fame of meeting his hero Brit Ben Ainsley in a bar once.
The teaching carried on with my new Luxembourg friend (the other pupil) and I taking turns on the rudder and the jib ropes until eventually we docked back in Korcula, looking forward to 2 more lessons in the following days.
