During the summer vacations the local sports club P.E.K.E.V. apart from the swimming lessons also offers sailing practice. Children from primary school as well as high school have the opportunity to learn how to sail with a so called “Laser” boat.
The task of the volunteers is to assist the sailing teachers and furthermore to take the role of a sailing teacher themselves. Together with the children we drive the boats out of the storage room, prepare them for sailing, put them into the water at the the ramp of the swimming pool and then in the water fix all the ropes and parts of the boat.
We take the children one or two at a time and sail with them from the beach “Ormos Lo” in the direction of Turkey. We show them how to handle the rope and the steering and then let them handle one task themselves.
In order to return to the beach, we make a “tag”, which means that we turn the boat. If you make a mistake here, you might flip over, however flipping over is also part of learning how to sail. After flipping and having put the boat up again successfully you feel much safer because you know what to do if you find yourself in this situation
If there is no wind or the wind is too strong, we do “dry-exercises”, where the children one by one have to fix the Laser all by themselves and after try to do the same with closed eyes, or we simulate situations in the shallow water, so the children know e.g. how to put the boat back up after it flipped or how to hang.
After the sailing practice we rinse the boats and life-jackets with water and put them back into the storage room.
And of course we play games with the children, such as volleyball or water polo.
All in all it is a very exciting task which not only allows you to learn how to fight with the sea yourself, but moreover to transfer this knowledge to the local children.
To see all pictures go into our gallery!
