Don't go back in the water.

As many of you will know, I'm a natural sportsman so adding windsurfing to my list of abilities wasn't in the least bit daunting. My instructor was a rugged, well-tanned Frenchman called Uno. Imagine a pretentious version of Eric Cantona and then remove any element of self doubt. Uno's pedagogical style seemed to involve windsurfing at speed past me backwards whilst facing outwards and laughing at my limited skills.

After Uno's demonstration I was invited to 'do what he had just done but facing the other way' and left to my own devices. 20 minutes of wrestling with the board and sail and falling into the shark infested Red Sea was long enough to drift surprisingly far out. I remembered Uno's muttered advice about tacking against the wind to get back in. My favoured method for calculating wind direction was to sit huddled and terrified whilst sobbing and screaming 'for the love of Jesus, I'm too young to die'. The total lack of response from the rapidly diminishing shore-reclined Uno indicted that I was downwind. I then remembered him saying that the key to windsurfing was arm position. I had to agree after 10 minutes of waving my arms above my head attracted the aid of a passing speedboat which kindly dragged me to shore. Once we had repeated this ritual 3 times my hour long lesson was sadly over. I staggered back to the hotel room for a good cry.

Perhaps I'll try kite surfing next...

J.


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Location:Dahab