Time to put on the sailor suit – makes a change from the birthday suit – the council have invested 200K in the Whiteadder reservoir sailing club and built a wooden swiss chalet style clubhouse (better than the old portacabin) with a small flotilla of dinghies (Laser Picos and Wayfarers). Excellent resource and with two instructors they run 2 day courses through the Royal Yacht Association syllabus for 25 quid a day including rescue and a cup of tea.
The day started with a rush for the extra large wet suits, which I lost, so ended up wearing a fetching red anorak and my swimming trunks – Jamie was thrilled to find out that I had been shivering my timbers around his drinking water – I certainly wouldn’t like to have Seamen in my mains tank.
It was more reservoiring than dinghing – I even managed to fall in the water before getting onto the dinghy, managed to fall off the dinghy and at one point whilst gybing managed to capsize it entirely – righting it by swinging from the dagger board only to capsize it again by climbing in the wrong side.
Unfortunately whilst we were all off capsizing, tacking, gybing and shouting ‘Starboard’ like demented pirates, someone had rifled through our clothes pinching wallets and the instructors cash box. One of the dinghiers was a policeman from Galashiels who lost his warrant card and had to explain this to his chief constable. Being poor I didn’t have anything to lose and my underwear was protecting my bag and packed lunch.
The second day was spent on the rules of the sea, mainly breaking them. The wind was waving around the bottom of Admiral Beaufort’s scale blowing around dead calm so our race looked like something from a slowed down movie – I was using my rudder to paddle at one point. I was in the doldrums and supplies were running low – Water, water everywhere; Nor any drop to drink – well apart from being on a large inland water reservoir – unfortunately TimTams were at an all time low so it was time to paddle to shore.
There were no albatrosses but there was a military helicopter that flew very low over the reservoir and the RAF Tornadoes were always on display over the Lammermuir hills.
