I don't like courses or 'tests'....I thought I had given them up when I left school and I definitely gave them up straight after I qualified as an advanced scuba diver. Oh, no - hold on a minute, didn't i do Dayskipper Theory for a year as well with 2 exams at the end? Ok, so maybe taking tests are better if you are actually enjoying the learning? With this in mind, and using it as a reasonable excuse to have a 5 day break with the girls, I booked the Dayskipper Practical course with Ann and Tina (the friends on the 'buoygate' weekend tale, told in the previous entry).
The course lasted 5 days, starting on Friday evening and finishing Wednesday afternoon. We booked with Commodore Yachting, based at Gosport Marina and I can highly recommend them. We learned such a lot and had a real laugh along the way, with the help of our shipmates Phil and Ingela and the antics of Tom who was our skipper and teacher. The course involved navigation, night sailing, man overboard retrieval, mooring techniques, helming, ropework, testing of rules of the road and lights/shapes etc etc. Of course there was a fair share of socialising too which was always a laugh.
