Making a Splash at UKSA

Year 7 headed to the Isle of Wight for their first residential trip with Dr Challoner’s. Over the course of five days, all six houses went to the UK Sailing Academy (UKSA). Foxell, Holman and Newman went from Monday to Wednesday, while Pearson, Rayner and Thorne departed on Wednesday and arrived back on Friday.

When we arrived at UKSA we were shown around the site by some of the staff. After that, we went to our rooms and changed into our wetsuits. They were very tricky to get on and even harder to get off! On the first day, my group did some fun water activities which included jumping in off the pontoon and running across a row of tied-together kayaks. After some fun in the water, we peeled off our soaking wetsuits and went in the soothing, steaming showers. Once we had changed and unpacked, we headed downstairs for dinner. When we had finished eating, we did some evening activities. On the first night, we played some indoor games, learned how to use VHF radios and even did some crabbing! After a busy day, we finally had a chance to rest and within seconds we were all fast asleep.

We had an early start to Tuesday with breakfast at seven o’clock. Once we had eaten, we went back to our rooms to chill for half an hour before getting ready for the day’s activities. During Tuesday, we did lots of fun activities, like kayaking and keel-boating. As well as that, we built rafts and then had a race with them. All three teams were sabotaging each other, untying knots and pushing people off! In the evening we enjoyed ourselves even more. We did some practical activities like tying knots and learning some geography and then we jumped in the pool, which was so nice and warm compared to the freezing sea. After another exhausting day, we collapsed onto our beds, sad that our first residential at Challoner’s had nearly come to an end.

Despite how exhausted we all were, we woke up early on Wednesday morning. We did some dry activities, one of them an obstacle course, before we left UKSA.

UKSA was very fun and I would love to visit again. I made lots of new friends and became so much more confident in the water.