Not this. This is an activity called 'Night Line" where we get the Dustbin Lids to walk around the place blind-folded. Meanwhile, we get the chance to hit them in the face with sticks and general foliage. Just thought I'd stick it in as you often hear teachers moaning about how you can't lay a finger on an unruly child in this day and age. You can when they do this. They just think they've walked in to a tree.
Some of these kids are so stupid, they think these fish live in the sea. Little do they realise that they actually come from hundreds of dining room fish tanks from all over England.
We've finished on Tioman now. Last week was our last class before we finish for the monsoon period. That's when I had my mini epic.
Once the kids had snorkelled at Rengis Island, we threw them all on the plane back to Singapore, and instead of going with them this time, we had to stay on Tioman for the weekend so we could pack stuff away and make sure that the bouyancy aids were still bouyant - that sort of thing. It's always best to check these things once the kids have tested them out first...
Seeing as we'd got most of that sort of thing done by Saturday afternoon and weren't due to fly home until Sunday, we had some time to kill. There's only so many card games you can play before you start to feel a certain desire to take a lonely sailing boat out to play on the sea, despite watching kids capsize the things every Monday for the past five weeks.
Rob and Jackie decided to go for a quick power nap, whilst me and Simmo decided to let a thunderstorm pass through before trying to attract forks of lightning with an aluminium Topper sailing boat mast. Such is the logic associated with practical common sense. I carried on reading for a while as the storm passed, and Simmo, eager to get out there, rigged his boat and took to the sea.
Twenty minutes' heavy reading later, I glanced up and noticed that Simmo's boat was practically on its side, flying through the surf of the strengthening waves. "Sod getting to the end of Chapter 22," I thought to myself. "That looks like a good laugh."
I hastily rigged up a Topper, made sure that I'd finished my cup of tea, forgot to put a bouyancy aid on, and pushed off in to the water.
This was the best wind we'd had in the past five weeks and I was soon heading out to sea, aiming for Simmo's speck of a boat in the distance. I made a conscious decision that I'd be fine without a bouyancy aid, and unconscious reasoning failed to inform me that the wind was strong because it was the tail-end of a storm, and also, that this wind was blowing strongly off-shore...
The wind was 'stonking' as some people might say when their sailing boat is on its side, teetering between being partially soaked and absolutely wet through and upside down. I'll be honest: I'm as good at sailing as I am at shopping for shoes with girls. Somehow though, I had managed to sail out to sea without capsizing yet; I was loving it. The boat was so far over on its side that I was making strange noises: the sort where you'd be very embarrassed if anyone around was to overhear. Great.
Me and Simmo belted past each other several times, trying to express our love for our new-found sailing skills, yet only managing something like a scream of 'AAAGGGHHHHH" as we passed. It was better to stay upright than concentrate on having a brief conversation at speed, with two eyes full of salty water.
Several minutes passed, with much of the same thing, when I suddenly noticed that I was quite a way out from shore and that Simmo had headed back towards the beach. Pushing the rudder away from me (to turn back), the boat turned quickly, and imbalanced, my previous invincibilty came to a crashing end as the boat cart-wheeled and capsized. "No major drama," I thought, as I managed to climb back in to the Topper and spit out some sea water. As I tried to sort myself out, I noticed that the force of the capsize had somehow managed to force the boom (the bar that connects the bottom of the sail to the mast) away from the mast. As I noticed this, a gust of wind blew the boat over for a second time.
I untangled myself from the ropes in the boat and came up out of the water, wishing that I had decided to put a bouyancy aid on before I'd jumped in to the boat. The waves were quite high at this point, and it was then that it finally struck me.
My boat, on its side, facing the distant shore, had just been caught by a gust of wind that was taking it away from me and out towards the South China Sea. The wind, that had been providing me with lots of fun, I realised, was actually blowing strongly out to sea, as opposed to back towards the security of the beach. I shit myself (metaphorically). Although the sea was thankfully warm, that boat was my means of staying afloat, along with the fact that I didn't relish the prospect of telling my new boss that I'd somehow managed to let a Topper dinghy sail away from me on its own.
This was obviously a split-second thought that I had. It wasn't a moment where I had time to weigh up the relative merits of both sides of the argument, of whether or not to leave a boat that was quickly blowing away from me.
I swam after the boat as fast as I could and soon came to the conclusion that it was actually moving faster than I could swim...
So I had to swim as though I was listening to other school teachers pointing at me, saying, "That's him. The member of the Outdoor Education Department who went out without the necessary equipment and managed to lose a brand new school boat! Safety first, eh?" Somehow, that spurned me on. I managed to grab the top of the mast and haul myself back down the sail towards the hull.
Things were going from bad to worse. I couldn't really attempt to fix the boom because if I tried, then I was bound to capsize again. The sail would still fill up with wind with the boom as it was, so I just had to try to sail back in the direction of the shore, although much easier said than done, what with the wind blowing directly towards me from that direction. I managed a few metres before a lapse in concentration saw the boat capsize once more. This time, however, the boat went right over or 'turtled' as it's known. Usually when a Topper capsizes, it goes on to its side with the sail resting on the top of the water and is relatively easy to right again. With a full capsize or 'turtle', the boat goes all the way over and the whole sail becomes submerged. In order to right it again, you have to grab the dagger board (a bit like a shark's fin which sticks out the bottom of the boat in to the water, normally) and lever the boat on to its side before you can right it as usual. This is fine, as long as the dagger board is still there. You have to physically put it in place when you begin sailing and when the boat is upturned it has a tendency sometimes to drop out in to the water underneath the boat. Luckily, it should remain attached by a length of cord fixed around the mast.
To get the dagger board back in to its slot once it has dropped out, you have to duck under the boat in to the place where you'd normally be sitting, and then try to fix it back in place. Not usually a great problem, apart from this time...
I dived under the boat and eventually found the dagger board with my hands. A bouyancy aid would usually help you to float, while you perform, what can sometimes be a fiddly job. As I was trying to find the dagger board, I realised that I also had to contend with the waves that were now lifting up the boat as they passed and then crashing it back down on to my head, making the job slightly more difficult and filling my mouth with even more sea water. I eventually pushed the dagger board into place, ducked under and up the other side of the boat, and righted the boat, before carefully crawling, exhausted, in to the boat, so as not to capsize again. I felt like crying, just like Ellen MacArthur, except I didn't have a video camera on board, and so decided against it.
This happened several more times. Sometimes, if the boat 'turtled', the dagger board would remain there long enough for me to grab it just in time, before it slipped out and under the boat, whereas other times it would slowly and cruelly slide out of its place as a wave tore past dropping the boat into its trough.
I was wishing for several things: for a bouyancy aid; the aid of a safety boat; or, failing these, that Simmo would see me in trouble and attempt some kind of rescue. With no chance of the first two, Simmo was my only option over trying to sort myself out. As it turned out, he'd seen me and tried to get over, but he kept on capsizing as well. He couldn't make it in the end.
"Trouble's only worth mentioning once you've got yourself out of it." So said a famous explorer and sailor called Bill Tilman. I would have happily had some help and told nobody, but this wasn't an option. I sailed across the wind for about 1km, eventually managed to fix my boom, and arrived back at shore about two hours after my first capsize and had a cup of tea that I didn't think I'd have again.
Just thought I'd get it off my chest. Safety first, remember...
