The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Denver, Colorado

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Denver, Colorado

Sailing

After our visit to Alaska, we headed back to Denver where my uncle and aunt stay. We arrived over the weekend and the next week was going to be epic.

That week I was going sailing. Yeah that is right. Sailing. You must be imagining me, Raghav Agrawal Of class 7B, trying to sail a boat. Please. I know you are going to fall off your chair and start rolling on the floor in laughter but please for the sake of your electronic device, please remove that 

and then start laughing.

So yeah. Monday morning and I had to wake up early. I have heard this line before. I wonder where?

So we ate breakfast and headed out of the door towards the car but we never made it. Why, you may ask. Well because it was locked. Obviously.

We first had to drop off the little kids to some Minions survival camp. After dropping them in we started our journey to the Vaughan Way Dam road. Hey, I remember the name.

We were having the class with the people at  Community Sailing of Colorado. We had to get registered and then all the kids in our Beginner batch had to sit down and introduce themselves. Everybody had to say their name, the name of the school they go to and their least favourite vegetable. I didn’t know what to say. I crossed my fingers hoping I wouldn’t have to go first and then our instructor, Gary, pointed his finger and said the word I dreaded. “You”. And in my mind I am like “Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo .

He didn’t point at me.

While we went through all the other 16 kids names, I was thinking on what I should call myself. But my thinking cut short because it was my turn. I said the first thing that came to my mind.

Bob.

I said it. And then I changed back to Raghav and then India. But I realised that nobody would be able to get my name so I just told them to call me Bob. And they did.

So for the next four days I was sailing in a no swimming lake. We learnt how to capsize and that was the highlight of the class. We turtled a few times and we had to pull the boat from the centre board with all our strength. A turtle was when the sail went down completely, a 180′ turn. Then you had to stand on the hull and pull. We learned points of sail and we played 500 and Quidditch. 500 was when they dropped tennis balls and water noodles into the water and you had to sail around and grab those things. The items would worth different points and you had to earn them for your team. Sometimes you would get a mystery box or a would be allowed to capsize!

Qudditch was like the original Harry Potter one. We had to collect the noodles and balls for points and there was even a snitch.

On the last day of our class, we had something called the Sailing Olympics. We were divided into teams where we decided our own team name and chant. There were series of events like silent ninja docking game where you had to silently dock and grab a noodle from the table in the middle of the deck before a blindfolded instructor hears and catches you. There was even a rigging and de rigging race and a sandcastle building contest. Our team came last but that was okay because we actually won the sailing contests and not the other ones. I had a lot of fun and encourage people to try this sport.