Yep, it's all there: everything we need for a holiday that will be about as nerve-racking as stroking a kitten on Valium.
An hour later, though, it is apparent why Sunsail's Club Phokaia near Foça, western Turkey, should feature in a travel issue that has adventure as its theme.
My mucker Matthew and I are hanging out of a sailing dinghy bouncing across an aggressive little chop as we get out into the bay. Twenty knots of wind sends spray flying over the boat as we crash over another wave. Matthew, hanging on the trapeze a wire from the mast on which he suspends himself to get his weight right out of the boat makes a suggestion: "Shall we get the kite up?" (The kite being a reaching sail that will instantly double the square feet we have in front of the wind.)
The boat skitters and jumps in a gust. "Er, OK, sure, let's give it a go."
Seconds later, after much frantic pulling, hands bleeding from a burst blister created on an earlier excursion, our little Laser Vago is doing all it can to take off with 26 stones of bloke straining and tensing to keep the thing upright. With a lung-busting "Yaaaahoo!", the boat goes into overdrive; we've tamed the beast, the sea is hissing and fizzing beneath us, and two men, a concoction of stainless steel and fibreglass, the wind and the sea are in harmony.
For a few minutes.
A goliath of a gust overpowers us, the boat crashes arse-over-tip into the sea, and the dads bob up and down in the water disentangling themselves from the mêlée of ropes. Within a minute, a chirpy chap with salt-encrusted sunglasses turns up in a safety boat to check all is well. It is, it is. And off we go to do it all over again.
This is adventure all right, but it is adventure-lite. Here I can satisfy a lifelong lust for sailing that included running a sailing centre in Greece and pass on that passion to my children without forcing them to endure chilly exhortations to heave on sodden ropes in the murk of the Thames. Furthermore, in a couple of hours, Matthew and I will be in the bar.
Showered, refreshed (although with windswept skin the colour of pimento), we will be reunited with our wives and children who as members of kids' clubs, Sea Urchins, Gybers, etc, depending on their ages, will have had their own adventures in the briny and oh, the tales that we'll tell of our exploits at sea. How steadfastly we hiked hard and trimmed the sails to prevent a hurricane-force gust sweeping us over; how only well-timed teamwork prevented us from skewering the incompetents sailing by on one of the yachts; how in an act of extreme bravery we picked ourselves up from another capsize and headed out to sea again.
Club Phokaia offers adventure in spades. Team up with another family, go yacht cruising. Take your children out of club and go off sailing together; race against other sailors; teach your own children to sail; or, for some families, for whom Club Phokaia is simply a fairly luxurious hotel in a beautiful setting, get someone else to teach them for you.
Or do all of it. Even if you're a beginner or a relatively inexperienced sailor, you can take advantage of an operation so well drilled you almost expect to see little sergeant-majors popping out from behind the palms barking orders to the sailing instructors.
Within seconds, a bright orange Funboat was rigged and on the water, and in the same brisk wind, on the same dark Aegean water, I and the elder daughter, eyes sparkling, would skit across the waves. Golly it was fun helping her guide this splendid little craft out to sea, valiantly holding its own in surprisingly strong breezes while racing thoroughbreds crashed and burned around us.
The whole family, too, took off on one of the ten big, gutsy Hobie catamarans, whooping with delight as we got a hull airborne and sped out to sea waving at instructors joyriding beginners on the same craft.
Club Phokaia has about a million dinghies, nine yachts for day sailing and racks full of windsurfers at your disposal. It is a truly Noughties institution, where everyone says "guys" to everyone. You can work out in the gym, get pampered in the spa, or take one of the mountain bikes out alone or in a group into the Turkish hinterland. It's a regime that will satisfy the dilettante, the novice, the expert.
If, however, you're not so sociable, you might find the atmosphere a bit too much. Socialising is an integral part of a Sunsail Club holiday, but rather than sharing your tales of adventure with a few friends in a bivouac at the side of Ben Nevis, you are expected, even obliged, to meet up with complete strangers on the sun terrace of this private holiday complex.
Sunsail has a unique meals system, but effectively it's half-board, and some. If you don't want to spend money on cabs and dinner going into Foça two miles or so away and you'd be mad not to enjoy this unutterably charming, really quite untouristy Turkish town at some point then you will sit on tables of a minimum of eight. A quiet drink at the bar is impossible: the average time for a "Do you mind if we join you?" is about 3.2 seconds. Whether you do or not, it's not really up to you, and your new drinking partners will set the tone for the evening.
And we had the added problem that while Phoebe, 7, desired nothing more than to join the Sea Urchins for back-to-back adventures, including sailing, mask-making, swimming and speedboat rides, Amelia, 5, found such enforced fun anathema. She wanted to be with her family. Family, though, was minus big sister, which meant one parent pootling around the swimming pool or beach with a child who was, simply, scared of sailing, which in turn meant parents couldn't go out in a boat together cue yah-hooing with Matthew instead. The clubbiness of a Sunsail holiday, in other words, applies to children, too.
But these superbly run centres are called Sunsail Clubs, and that should be taken literally. So it would be churlish to resent the fact that here is somewhere to make friends (which tends to be with families in the holiday season and couples and singles outside it). Indeed, many families who had met on previous holidays had rebooked together, and enjoyed a boozy, al fresco conviviality, especially with the children safely in video club (until 10 o'clock, when babysitting is offered).
The following morning's start to the day, then, is tempered slightly by the prospect of a hangover but nothing that a good dunking can't cure.
Getting there
Seven nights at Club Phokaia costs from £579 per adult and from £459 per child (based on two people sharing a room). Price includes return flights with First Choice Airways from Gatwick (departure day Sundays), transfers, half-board accommodation and complimentary use of Sunsail Clubs' sailing and shore-based equipment. Infant prices £70 for seven nights. Sunsail Clubs Reservations: 0870 4270077; www.sunsail.co.uk
More family travel:
- Rediscovering love while skiing in Lech
- Are kids holiday clubs bad?
- Five family holidays
- Doing Oman with a teen
- Woolacombe Bay
