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A week in the life of a Windsurf Instructor at Club Vass
Working at Club Vass is a dream come true for me. If you had said to me this time last year that I would be here I wouldn't have believed you. This year has been by far the best of my life, I feel as though I have achieved so much and am enjoying every second.
Club Vass is everything that I thought it would be and more. I love teaching so much and being out here in the sun windsurfing every day is amazing! The team out here are legendary and I feel very privileged to be working alongside so many famous windsurfers like Andy "Bubble" Chambers, Simon Hurrey and Colin Dixon.
The beach team is as follows: Simon, Kieran, Olly, John, Nick, Chris, Bubble, Amy, Jo, Nancy, Colin, Max, George, Barney, Jamie, Lucy, Ellie, Morgan and me! Everyone has made me feel so welcome. They are a great team and I think that this is reflected in the experience that the guests enjoy at Club Vass.
Our week at Club Vass starts on a Saturday morning when the guests start their week. On Saturday morning the whole beach team meet at 9am and Simon, the beach manager, talks us through the week ahead and lets us know what groups we will be teaching. We meet the guests at 10am when they are split into their teaching levels. Teaching beginners is awesome. It's a great sense of achievement watching them go from wobbling around on the board on the first day to using the harness and beachstarting by the end of the week. I love the smiles on their faces when it all starts to come together!
I start on the Saturday morning by getting to know the group and finding out if they have done any previous windsurfing or sailing. Once I have completed all the paperwork I get the group straight out on the water. I do board balancing exercises with my group first to break the ice and then get them used to the boards and help them find their balance. Last week they were all in fits of laughter trying to get each other off the boards! It's a great way of everyone getting to know each other.
balancing exercises
We then get out on the water with sails and I start to teach the group how to get into the secure position and do the static turn. The groups always progress at different levels but after the first morning everyone is up and sailing around learning how to steer and turn. We teach the beginners every morning when we are lucky enough to have a light onshore breeze, perfect for beginners, to learn how to windsurf.
The beginners also get one afternoon session later in the week when they are ready for the stronger, cross-shore winds. The rest of the time I spend on the beach either in the beach hut, sail rack, tower, rescue boat or windsurfing.
rescue boat duty
The beach hut is the central point in the beach and is where we take peoples sailing cards, hand out fins and answer any questions that the guests might have. Club Vass is a really social place and the guests are always really friendly and chatty. We also spend time in the sail rack putting away the guests' sails when they come back off the water and discussing how their session went.
The other vitally important roles on the beach are the tower and rescue boat. One of the beach staff is always in the tower with binoculars making sure that everyone is safe and happy on the water. They are in constant contact with the person in the rescue boat. The person in the rescue boat rescues any guests that are in trouble or generally helping out anyone who needs it. I really enjoy every role on the beach as they are all very varied.
In the afternoon 'Eric' the legendary wind kicks in, which is when things start to get really exciting and busy. You actually see people running down to the beach to get out on the water, with people rigging up in every available spot on the lawn. The bay is then alive with windsurfers enjoying
the fantastic wind.
We are lucky enough to get time out on the water each afternoon. We run a sailing rota where we each take turns to have 40 minute windsurf sessions. The instructors then get to show off their best moves to the guests watching from the beach or cocktail bar.
Tasha waving to the beach ...
The instructors bust out move after move with endless tricks like forward loops, Shakas, Flakas, Vulcans and more. Vassiliki is an awesome place to sail in but equally as good to watch the windsurfing with the showcase of amazing talent that make up the Club Vass instructional team.
Saturday evening is welcome drinks and a meal for all the new guests. Instructors join the guests for a drink from 8pm and sit down to a delicious feast from the windsurfing chefs.
On Sunday I generally get the group straight out on the water. I'll start to teach them tacking and sailing upwind. A few weeks ago on the second day my whole group managed to sail as a follow my leader exercise to a video tower upwind. It's a great sense of achievement when the whole group manage to get upwind so early on in the week. I do also do some useful theory sessions
for the group during the week including points of sail and rights of way.
Sunday night is usually a really big night out ending up at the Zeus Bar in Vassiliki town. The Zeus Bar is an awesome bar which as you can imagine we all frequent regularly!!! The infamous Colin "Whippy" Dixon DJs at the Zeus on a Sunday night so it's an busy night of drinking and dancing on the shelf (an extreme sport in itself!!)
the legendary Zeus Bar
Teaching continues on Monday where I will generally teach gybing and sailing downwind and maybe start teaching a bit of light wind freestyle. It's amazing what complete beginners can achieve in a week. I normally have them all doing sail 360s and body and sail 360s which they all enjoy!
Monday night is generally a quiet one to catch up on the sleep missed from the previous night, so I might go for a meal out or get a take away and chill with a DVD. Movies are a necessity in seasons like this and between all the instructors there is a huge collection of films that I am making my way
through gradually!
By Tuesday the beginners are making real progress and I will start to talk to them about the RYA fast forward technique and if they are ready I will give them an introduction to using the harness.
As I mentioned before we are given windsurfing time each day on a rota basis. So the afternoons are action packed with the various duties and free sailing out on the water and as a consequence, my windsurfing has improved lots since working here.
Club Vass has an amazing amount of boards and sails and it's so good being able to try out so many different boards. My favourites at the moment are the Tabou 3S and Fanatic Freewave. I generally rotate between sailing those boards depending on what mood I am in! We are so spoilt for choice with the kit here. I feel very privileged to be able to use it all.
Tasha's fave boards
I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to shadow Chris teaching a higher level group a few weeks ago, which was a fantastic opportunity to improve my sailing and see how the higher levels are taught. I picked up loads of tips on how to improve my waterstarts and carve gybes, as well as tips on how to develop my coaching.
Tuesday night is usually another fun night. It's windsurf night at Club Vass and the fantastic cocktail bar serves 2 for 1 cocktails in happy hour. So we generally start the evening there moving to Wildwind later for the live music. It's a fun night which usually ends in the Zeus bar, again!
Wednesday is our last teaching day for the clients and it starts off with race day and finishes with the infamous Club Vass BBQ!!! The beginners get out on the water straight away and we continue to practice everything that they have learnt all week and I also brief them about the racing. The race day is so much fun. The instructors all do a race briefing and an amusing warm up! Every client gets out on the water together for the races.
The clients are always up for a laugh and it's great fun. In order that it's fair, the beginners start first, followed by all the other levels ending with the advanced sailors. This gives my beginners an advantage as the course is quite small. I have had a number of clients come in the top three so far this season, which is fantastic and a great confidence booster.
After the straight race we have a freestyle race so all the clients can show off all their new moves that they have learnt during the week. My beginners normally show off their sail 360s and foot drags and sometimes heli tacks and cowboys! It's all about the taking part and everyone has a really fun time. After each race day we all get down on our hands and knees and thank 'Eric' for the wind each week.
After lunch the beginners get out on the water for a final session in the stronger, cross shore wind. I will normally teach them all how to beach start and encourage them to continue practicing the harness. It's a great week of teaching and I am always sad to see the clients leave at the end of the week.
Wednesday night is the Club Vass BBQ. Fancy dress is obligatory as is drinking copious amounts of punch! It's an amazing night of drunken antics. The theme for each week changes and we have had some interesting themes including film stars, heroes and villains and mid summer nights. The punch bar opens at 8.30pm and the first rule of the sacred punch bar is that everyone has to down their first punch! You can imagine how the evening unfolds after that!
After the BBQ, we show the race videos filmed and edited by the lovely Mark, our awesome mountain bike guide, which has footage taken throughout the week of the clients and instructors sailing. After the race video, by which time everyone has had consumed vast amounts of punch, the instructors start the evening entertainments. All the instructors organise the entertainments which vary from week to week. The trusted and equally as entertaining plate dance has happened a few times this season - definitely one for the ladies!! I won't go into too much detail but it involves baby oil, rubber gloves and paper plates!!!!
Thursday is my day off. So I usually spend the morning sleeping and watching DVDs before catching up with my washing and shopping. Even though I windsurf everyday, I still want to windsurf on my day off. So normally I get out in the afternoon for a long session practicing all the things that I am
working on.
Friday is our transfer day and so the guests are all packing up ready to leave. As it is a non teaching day we catch up on all the various jobs and maintenance ready for the new guests arrival. It is normally quite a quiet day as the guests are leaving. But we do have guests who want to windsurf up to the very last minute before the coach arrives.
Friday is the end of the week at Club Vass so generally we all go for a quiet drink in the cocktail bar after work. Each week, although quite similar in one way, is so different in others. Varying conditions and lots of different characters each week makes Club Vass an amazing place to work and sail in and I still can't actually believe that I am here.
Thank you everyone who has made this possible for me. The Flying Fish course followed by working at Club Vass has totally changed my life. It's incredible! A dream come true...
