Canoe Expo and 2-Star Award

Building on the success of the first Canoe Expo organised last year, 5 members of the Unit completed their MCF 2 Star Award between the 8th and 9th August. Three of the ventures, myself and a special guest met up on Friday night at L-Aħrax. From there we walked down to Slugs Bay for a short swim and then made it back up to set up bivoacs for the night. The ventures tried to get an early night..which turned out to be quite a challenge because of all the mosquitos.

The Unit walking down to Slgs Bay

Simon and George at Slugs Bay

The next morning Tom and Allen joined and we met up with our instructor Clarke, for what was going to be a full day out at sea. The ventures started off by brushing up on 1 Star stroke work, and once Clarke was satisfied proceeded to learn some new techniques.

Tom and Simon cooking lunch

After a lunch break it was straight back to the water for some rescue drills using several different techniques. Simon and Allen managed the eskimo roll in the process! Since we were spending the night at Mġiebaħ we returned to land to waterproof all the kits and load them in the kayaks. On the way to Mġiebaħ the team took turns at leading the group, while the others got creative with ways to create confusion to keep the leader busy. Allen decided this would be a good time to make a new friend and hide behind some boulders, waiting for the leader to notice his absence.

Allen with his new friend

The kayaks at Mġiebaħ

Once at Mġiebaħ the ventures set out on a search for firewood, supper couldn't come sooner after such a long day. There was one last adventure to go before dawn, a night paddle around the area. Definitely one of the highlights of the weekend from what I heard! Sounds like they got to see some bioluminescent bacteria too (bacteria in the sea which give off light when disturbed).. I was busy hunting in the meantime, the area's got quite a few rats of its own!

The next morning we returned to Għadira, where it was time to put all that the ventures had learnt to the test. Needless to say they all passed without difficulty, congratulations Tom, Simon, George, Allen and Chris! I'll just post one last picture of me with my kayak. More activities to follow so keep checking back!

Mo$es