Activities Week 2008
Posted by Sharon on June 6th, 2008
It doesn’t seem very long ago that I was planning a sailing voyage on board Greater Manchester Challenge for 11 S2 and S3 pupils. The trip has now been and gone and we have already started the planning process for next years trip. We left Knox Academy on Monday 19th May and headed to Troon Yacht Haven to meet the 78ft Gaff rigged ketch that was to be our home for the next week. We were welcomed aboad GMC with a lunch of soup and sausage rolls. After a discussion on our aims for the week and all the relevant familiarisation and safety briefings we departed a plan to get to Campbelltown. After alot of ‘feeding the fishes’ we arrived at Campbelltown where we stayed the night. The next day was another long sail round the Mull of Kintyre to Bowmore on the Island of Islay where we anchored for the night. Both days had been tiring for all the pupils so we made the descision to stay in Bowmore on the Wednesday. This allowed the pupils to have a look round Bowmore and go swimming. On the Thursday we left Bowmore at 7am to head back to Campbelltown. Due to weather and tidal conditions the sail took us 21 hours and we arrived in Campbelltown at 4.30am on Friday morning, just in time to watch the whole of Cambelltown fishing fleet leave - quite a sight to see! Friday morning was spent catching up on some well needed rest and buying goodies for the remainder of the trip. We left Campbelltown late afternoon to enjoy a short sail up the Mull to Carradale Bay where we played lots of games around the table. On Saturday we sailed up round the top of Arran and headed back down towards Troon before heading off to the beach to play rounders. We cleaned the boat on Sunday morning before leaving on the bus to go back to Haddington. A great week was had by all and I must thank my colleague Peter Doig for stepping in to help at the last minute.