In the summer holiday of 2010 I went sailing in the Balearics on yacht Zillaine and it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. When me and my dad arrived in Mahon, Minorca we met our friends Peter, Will and Paul. They had already sailed Zillaine to Mahon, so we joined them to race Zillaine in the classic sailing regatta sponsored by the Italian watch maker Panerai. It was my first time in a regatta so I was very excited and keen. It was planned to have three races on three days but unfortunately we were unable to race on the last day due to the weather. Every evening there was music, food and a TV with footage of the highlights of that day and a lot of booze. I really enjoyed it and would recommend to anyone.

Paul and Will went to the airport to fly home the day after but as soon as we refilled the fuel we set sail for Mallorca which would be my first sail at night.

Before nightfall we put some fishing rods out with some lures on the end. I always wanted to catch a fairly big fish and in a few hours I had some luck, when I pulled the line and felt a tug and it was a fish but only a small tuna that got caught on it but anyway we made sushi out of that!

The next morning after we arrived in Mallorca we picked up our friend Danny up who came to help us sail the boat back to mainland Spain. When I was asleep that night up on deck the crew heard something. It was whizzing fast and loud, and it turned out to be the fishing line! They picked up the rod and tried their best to reel it in but it was to strong and was slowing the boat down so they had no choice but to cut the line. The morning after they thought it could have been a swordfish or something similar, I only wish I was awake.

I fully enjoyed this holiday and consider myself extremely lucky, my favourite parts include seeing the milky way at sea at night and dipping my feet into the water and seeing the plankton shining of it. I also liked helming the boat, there were some tough bits on the holiday but it was worth it. I thank Peter for this experience and will never forget it.

You can see me steering the yacht here when I sailied in Spain last year (I think I should say "helming" !)

George Purkis,

Bishops Castle, UK

Aged 11

In the Easter holiday 2008 I went Sailing in Cartagena, Spain with my brother Jack, my Dad and three friends, Pete the owner of the Zillaine boat, Heather, Harry and James which were sailers.

My first sail was from Cartagena to Mazarron where our appartment was. On the way to Mazarron Pete showed me how to drive the boat and I even had a go!

The Ride there took 5 hours to get to Mazarron because we were facing the wind we had to even have the motor on.

But it was only for half of the time so when we turned round the corner it was a nice sail.

My Favourate bit of the sailing out of the Harbour.

George Purkis

Aged 9