During the summer of 2013 twenty-seven members of Girlguiding Staffordshire enjoyed a week of water sports in Croatia.
Trip report:
In August 2013, 27 members of Girlguiding Staffordshire enjoyed a fantastic week in Croation with Jeka. Our group included Guides and Senior Section members from all over the County. We had met several times in the 12 months before our trip to get to know each other and to try some water sports in England.
Our accommodation in Podstrana was based right on the beach so we could easily enjoy some time in the sea and we were a short walk alongside the beach to reach our activity centre. Our Jeka hosts were great, from finding male models demonstrate knotting, taking us on walking tours of Split, cooking Croatian food through to arranging superb day trips.
We took part in a water based activity week enabling us to take part in a whole range of water sports. The weather was beautifully sunny all week which definitely made our watersports even better. We learnt that wind is an important factor for water sports, no wind means no sailing and too much wind means it’s too dangerous (but lucky for us this meant shopping in Split)! We had a great time in Split walking around the historic centre, sampling the local ice cream and hunting for bargains on the market stalls.
We tried wind surfing and went in groups of three on the cataraman. We enjoyed the banana seat, inflatable tyre, speed boat and jet ski’s. Marco and the team ran some great games using the paddle boards and we had a great laugh entertaining each other.
One of our day trips was to travel further up the coast to a small village from where we went sea kayaking and snorkelling. There were lots of small fish which we were able to watch when snorkelling in a quiet bay, then we had a very tiring paddle back! On the way back we visited the very nice historic village of Omis where we wandered around the cobbled streets with ice cream. Our last trip of the week was probably the best, we called in for another ice cream in Omis and then we went river rafting! We set off in large inflatable rafts laughing as we had to paddle to make the rafts move in the shallow slow river. They took the rafts under a freezing cold water that poured over our heads, some of us enjoyed jumping into the river and we all enjoyed splashing each other whenever we had the chance. Then the river got a bit faster and we raced through the rapids.
We had two evenings out during our week, the first was to watch local fishermen night fishing followed by Croatian cooked food. Our second night out was to celebrate our successful week with a meal at a local restaurant with a massive long
table on the beach front.
Some of us may remember how to use a map to navigate the sea but all of us will remember the fantastic time we had. We would all like to thank everyone who helped us fundraise and supported us on our trip. We recommend you try international Guiding, why not apply to go on the next Staffordshire trip?
