Sunday, October 07, 2007

Sporty Simon

Yesterday my eldest daughter and I joined an archery club*, and today I bought a second-hand windsurfer. Looking forward to a long summer ;-)

* I used to shoot at this club and participate in tournaments, and still have my gold, silver and bronze medals from several state & club events. Last night I spent a couple of happy hours fixing up the equipment, rebinding the grip with tennis racket tape (I have large hands, so the standard handle is too skinny) and fiddling with the arrows.

As for the windsurfer, I used to be a real dedicated nut. Only on the river, not the ocean, but my old Bombora tri-fin used to go at a hell of a lick in gale-force winds. I still have the wetsuit and harness, the latter being a big metal hook you held the boom with, to rest your arms.

After I got married I sold the board and bought a surfcat instead, with a spinnaker and a trapeze harness. There were three of us on it once, no idea how fast we were going but a wave washed my brother-in-law's feet off the hull when he was at full stretch in the trapeze, and he swung all the way round the mast and ended up dangling in the water on the opposite side. Not sure how we avoided tipping over, either.

What with the regular family cycle outings as well, I reckon I'll be the antithesis of a pale SF geek by the time summer is done ;-)




Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

3 comments:

Julia Buckley said...

My my how very Australian!

Sounds like a lot of fun.

Sean Lindsay said...

And you know what they say about writers with big hands. Big hardbacks.

Simon Haynes said...

Sean - I'd rather that was 'big advances' ;-)

Julia - this is an outdoors kind of place, although I've mostly avoided it for the past five years.