Our Christmas presents were places on a two day Ocean safety course, and I had slightly been dreading this booked weekend for awhile! We went through all those things you never want to happen and heard about numerous terrible case studies of what has gone wrong before and importantly the lessons learnt, and how and when to use all the emergency kit. Then it was time to get wet….
Nervous smiles 
It’s heavier than it looks 
6 of us are inside
Wearing full clothes and sailing waterproofs (Oilys), life jacket, we then hurled in the life raft (yellow bag) and learnt how to right the raft, climb in (easier said than done!) whilst our opposing crew hurled buckets of water at us and made a vast amount of noise. We are super jolly glad we have bought a self-righting life raft with a proper weighted and inflated step and not one like this. Believe me we are fit, but this was exhausting (but all doable). Then it was time for using flares..
Full on weekend and I hope we never have to use any of it, but best to be prepared and trained. Huge thanks to Jon for being a superb trainer (managing not to entirely terrify me) and for a great cohort to learn with. Good luck with the Fastnet race guys!
Halls Aboard - Sailing Kathryn del Fuego 
Well done, it’s true value to practice emergency situations – hope you’ll test out your own life raft several times before set-off 🙂
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