Footstraps and Daggerboards

So at last I'm on a computer and can actually type, which makes it much easier to type and doesn't restrict my blogs to 1000 characters.  As I sit here I feel like I'm still on a boat, it's really strange.  It feels like the boat is rising underneath me and then falling away again, whenever I'm still it feels like this and I'm not sure if it will go away as I get used to it or not :S  We weren't even out on the sea for half the day because the wind strength grew too much and my other two course-mates decided they didn't want to brave the sea :( 
Momentous occasion today.  Before this morning I had not capsized.  Before this afternoon I had not fallen into the water. (The only one of the group not to have done so, although this wasn't really an especially good thing as you need to capsize during the two weeks so that the instructor can see you can get the dinghy upright again.) 
You may be asking how my dunking and my capsizing didn't coincide... Well, there is, in the very instant the dinghy falls onto its side, a technique that can keep you out of the water and, astounding to myself and you, I pulled off the "dry capsize" in which you leap over the side of the boat, which is lifting up to stick vertically into the air, and onto the blade of the daggerboard, which comes through the boat.  Then, lean back slightly and it rights itself, and you leap back over as it does so.  Big smiles for me :D :D :D :D  First capsize and I pull off a dry one :D
My dunking is an entirely different and funnier matter.  In the middle of these dinghys there is a footstrap.  The idea is that you stick your feet under the footstrap and use it to lean out the boat, balancing it against the pull of the wind in the sail.  So, there I was, skimming along: sail in, going upwind, daggerboard down, everything's right.  As you accelerate you tip further towards the sail, if you don't balance it then you capsize... I DIDN'T capsize, but I had problems of another sort: the footstrap snapped.  Let me make it clear to any readers that when you're leaning out, most of your body is out of the dinghy, you are not sitting on the edge you are sitting over the edge... and if your support goes then, well, I can safely say from experience, that you go head over heels back in the water before you know what's going on and end up floating like a bottle wondering what just happened.  Drysuit came through again, thankfully, and I didn't get wet or cold particularly, it was just great fun.
No Martin today :( But we had this instructor called Rob instead.  Cool guy, good instructor,  and up for a joke.  Apparently I earned his comedy moment of the week award with the snapping of my footstrap... :D :D  I'm improving slowly.  Getting more confident though I'm making far too many fluff-ups for my liking.
Ah well, getting on with everything.  We have one more day of dinghy sailing, then we have Saturday kayaking - the one day we do of kayaking :( - and on Sunday we go on the powerboats and get (hopefully) our Powerboat Level 1s.  Then on Monday I THINK we get a day off.... we'll see....  And then the rest of that week will be doing Windsurfing, which, I'm reliably informed, is going to be a lot colder than dinghy sailing.  That;s fine, dinghy sailing hasn't been that cold at all to be honest.
Bar again I think this evening but, don't worry, I'm not turning into an alcoholic only the bar is the only communal place here, so it really is the only place to go.  Unless I particularly wanted to remain in the quiet stuffiness of the computer rooms... which I don't.
Martin is back on Saturday, not that I know where he's gone... lol  Rob tomorrow and on Sunday.  Loving it here, being out on the water so much is great fun and its cool to see how going out every day improves you so rapidly, especially with tuition.  My body still feels like it is bobbing along as I finish the post.  They have been more frequent than I thought they would be, but it's something to do in the evenings and it's cool so I don't mind.  I don't expect when I get to egypt in a couple of months that I will be updating very much at all because of the cost involved.
And a final note... I was thinking on the way back after the morning session that without the dryroom things would me extremely miserable.  I don't really fancy getting into wet stuff every morning...  If there was no dry room - such a simple thing - life would be much worse.  It really is the simple things that make the difference.  A bit like whether there is a footstrap in your boat or a daggerboard through its centre.