14 August 2012
14th August 12
After arriving on Thursday time has flown by and now we have said our sad goodbyes to all the amazing young people attending our Return to Sail trips this week.
It’s been a packed week at Bradwell, with 46 young people taking part in a range of activities throughout the week including sailing on Picos, Catamarans, Sonatas, and Wayfarers, paddling in canoes, and having a go at High Ropes, the Trapeze, All Terrain Biking and Archery. In the evenings after activities were finished the young people have been playing pool or table tennis in the games room, relaxing and chatting around the building and grounds, board games and cards, having their nails done, watching DVD’s, taking part in a quiz, and having a BBQ on the last night.
Josh, 14 from Portsmouth said at the end of the week, “It’s been completely amazing, I’ve loved it all except for the wetsuits coz they were uncomfortable!. My favourite bits were canoeing and Pico sailing.”
Joshua B from Dartford said at the end of his week “I had a brilliant time at Bradwell almost nothing could have been better except for having the absolutely soaking wetsuits to put on!”
Sam, 15 from Newark said, “Well, I thought it would be quite hard coz its six days and that’s quite a long time, but it was amazing in the end. All the different things you can do are great, I
didn’t know they’d have archery coz that’s one of my favourite sports, and I just had a great time anyway meeting new people. “
Milo, 11, from Birmingham said, “It was one of the best holidays I’ve ever been on coz everyone’s just fun and you get wet and are allowed to jump into the river on the canoe day. You make
lots of good friends.”
19 young people also returned today from their longer cruising trip, spending their time on board Pioneer, a 70 ft deep sea smack, and Thaletta, a Thames Barge tht with bowsprit is 120ft.
Although the week on the whole was very chilled, there was lots of cooking washing up and cleaning to do for all of the large crew on board. On each boat everyone worked really well as a team throughout the trip to get all the duties done.
Most days there was an early start with a good hearty fry up for breakfast before sailing somewhere to have lunch, then maybe stopping off somewhere in the afternoon. One morning it was a 05:30 start to catch the tide!
The crews spent alot of their time on board their boats although they did have a BBQ on the beach, went to see smoke house and sampled smoked fish and cheeses, and visited Osea island and a couple of other places and went on to the other boat. Everyone was also entertained with lots of waterfights between the two boats, learning navigation, chatting, crabbing, making cheesecake, playing Articulate, Uno and BlackJack, drinking lots of tea, trying to fish but not catching anything, and one crew slept in hammocks, it was like sailing on a pirate ship. Everyone got on really well on both boats and they sailed 100 miles in total!
We hope to see everyone back next year, thanks for a fantastic week!