As some of you may be aware, I'm a crew member at Penarth Lifeboat Station.  Last week I was at a training course at the Lifeboat College in Poole.  I'd heard great things about this place, but I was totally blown away by it.  The facilities are absolutely superb, and I can agree that it's widely regarded as the best powerboat school in the World - a real privilege to be there.  It's been running for 2 years now, and was £25 million in the making.  It makes it quite hard to believe that the RNLI is a charity!

The days were long and intense, and there was a huge amount of material packed into the course, including plenty of time at sea in the boats.  All in all, a superb, productive and very satisfying week.