What better way to spend a brisk Saturday morning than a sail around Qingdao coast.
Like a worried mother I texted the interns in the a.m to wear warm waterproof clothes and rubber shoes so as not to slip and catch a cold.
Armed with a scarf, two jackets, sea sickness pills and a hangover we headed down to marina city in Qingdao where our Skipper Summer was waiting for us.
Realising that it was 25 degrees out we felt silly wearing all our layers, so we stowed them below deck and donned our sun tan lotion.
We smashed a champagne bottle and set off! Waving goodbye to the mass of Chinese people looking down to see us off, we all revelled in the sun, laying about deck looking forward to a quiet afternoon drifting on the ocean..
No sooner had we left the safety of the marina when Summer (a former Olympian who competed in the 2008 Beijing games and who still competes at a national level) was barking orders at us to hoist the stern to tack and whittle the spinnaker portside! It was this moment that I then wished I had brushed up on my sailing terminology….
Luckily one of our interns Lasse had some sailing experience so he lept to attention and started pulling on ropes and swashbuckling around the boat, we all looked on thankfully. However, Summer had plenty of jobs to give out; Jenny was in charge of steering, lasse with the main sail, Tine and Mandy taking turns controlling the Spinnaker, myself with the important task of sitting at the front like a fat Kate Winslet to make the boat go faster and Fabian’s job was to curl up in a ball and be sick.
We all knew our roles and did them well.
Once we had whizzed around the bay a couple of times, annoyed a few professional sailors and riding some waves we felt it time to go back. Summer dropped the Spinnaker and the boat cruised slowly back to port, we were taking pictures of the sunset soaked horizon and generally relaxing on the way.
All in all it was a great trip, (nearly) everyone had a wonderful time and we couldn’t have been luckier with the weather… lets hope we can make sailing a regular InternChina event!
