Where's The Wind! The Guys at Vass!

27-06-09

2208 (local time)

Ahh how frustrating! For about 1.5 weeks there has been no wind... I know this must sound greedy to all the windsurfers back at home... but honestly, when you come to Vassiliki you kinda expect wind at least every second day...

Whats been happening is that there has been a massive storm cell sitting over the top of us, which is killing all signs of wind. But it has made some of the sickest viewing of storm clouds ever, as they brew up over the mountain behind us.

So what have I been doing to keep myself amused and entertained...

Well, this last week just gone, I’m now a qualified (almost) Intermediate Planing Instructor!!! Which is totally awesome. All I need to do know is complete 42 more hours of Start Windsurfing Instructing until I get my ticket, 50 hours is the pre-requisite to get it.

I had a spoke to Andy “Barnsey” Barnes and he thinks my sailing is totally up to scratch all I need to do know is stop talking during my presentations on the simulator, and pretty much get more hours on the water. Because I have only been windsurfing for 1.5 years, I still haven’t totally figured out the sport. Andy recognised this, so he set me a few things to concentrate on. I reckon, that becoming an instructor is one of the best ways to improve your sailing. Anyway! Enough about windsurfing.

My plan on this blog was just to chat about the environment, conditions and the people that I hang with at Club Vass!

Righteo, Club Vass is set up into 5 main categories, there are the beach team, counter staff, kitchen staff, housekeepers and management.

Ill start off with the beach team, because this is where I work. All the boys and girls that I work with are super relaxed and super sick windsurfers. Really, really helpful. Generally when there is no wind, we are just chilling on the deck relaxing and taking it easy. But if the cross-shore wind comes through, its all systems go! There are normally 2 people out in rescue boats, 1 person on the tower watching over everything, 2 people in the sail rack putting away sails and 2 people in the beach hut looking after everyone. When the cross-shore comes in, everyone works off a sailing rotor, if there are more than 5 people working the beach hut, the 6^th person gets a 40 minute sail, and it rotates through everyone every 40 minutes.

The top sailors at the beach hut are, obviously Andy ‘Bubble’ Chambers, Oli Scott, Max, Rik, Jay, 2-Pumps, Ed and Colin. Colin had a bit of an accident at the pub where he fell off the monkey bars in the club and ended up breaking his leg... top form I reckon! They are all super cool dudes and constantly want to help you out. Then there is Danny (the Mountain Bike Super Star) and her boyfriend Andrew, the Scottish champ! We push each other heaps to bust the new tricks! Really cool dudes!

We will then move on to the Kitchen staff, I have worked out an agreement with the head chef Jamie, that if I work in the kitchen as much as possible, I get free food on certain days and im allowed to come into the kitchen to make myself food. Its been awesome, because I’ve been learning to cook all types of different food. So at the moment I work in the kitchen on Tuesday’s and Thursday, also and as of Sunday, I have moved in with Jamie for a bit, because they have run out of room for me in the other spots! Its good to be living with people, because where I was before I got a bit lonely!

The rest of the staff I don’t deal that much with, but everyone that works at Vass are pretty cool people.

There’s two other people that I hang with, and there names are Laura Slater and Ally Warr. These two are the resident photographers at Club Vass! Laura is awesome fun to hang with because she always is wanting to teach you something about photography, plus she is just generally a cool person! “On ya Lozza” Whilst Ally, chills out with the lot of us, going for casual windsurf’s and we give each other shit... or BANTER as the pommies call it!

Anyway, Tonight, I just got a phone call from Andy Young, “Youngie” who I hung with for ages in Turkey, he is coming down for a visit in Vass, which I’m really looking forwards for!

Anyway, that’s pretty much it for me!

I jazzed up my blog site, so if its cool let me know!

Chat soon guys!!!

Steve