Friday April 29, 2016: the club cruising section met at the Tween-waters Marina resort for a fun-filled weekend to send off our racers on Sunday morning to race down the outside to Sanibel.
Most members cruised up during the day on Friday on their boats with just a couple arriving on Saturday. A few members and crews joined in the fun by driving up the island chain, and one crew member actually bicycled all the way up from Cape Coral – some 33 miles!
Boats attending were Wind Star, Buffy, Blank Check, Salty Soul, Full Tilt, Jazzy, Miss Cathleen, Crys- tal Daze, Kalusa, Sol Adventure and Trust Me. Trust Me was berthed up at South Seas Plantation and they walked down on Saturday to join in with Happy Hour and the Pot Luck din- ner. Also, Michael & Linda drove out to join in the events on both Friday and Saturday.
The weekend turned up some interesting events • Tim organized an ad hoc music quiz during Friday evening’s Happy Hour. We all knew some of his tunes but Jean Blessing had to be forcibly removed from
the competition due to her extraordinary knowledge of all matters musical. Tim only had to play the first 3 notes of any known song by any known artist worldwide for her to list everything about the said song and art- ist even down to what
color shirts they wore. • Friday evening many people enjoyed an excellent meal in the Crow’s Nest or on board their boats. • Walking back to the boats from the restaurant we all noted between-the-clouds thunder claps in the dis- tance. No rain was forecast so many boats left their hatches open to get the cool breeze blowing through. As usual the forecast was a tad inaccurate and many boats’ crews (including Wind Star’s) woke up around midnight to find themselves rained upon inside the boat! • Before the Saturday evening events, Gary Bless- ing was to be seen at the pavilion balancing on a very rickety plastic chair to enable to ceiling fan to work. It was a hot night.•
On Saturday many people took advantage of the excellent beach on the Gulf side. Some rented bicycles and some tarried by the pool bar. The Diedricksen’s made some great friends in the next-door power boat. To assist them boarding and leaving Buffy (that had had to be moored bow-in), the neighbors spent considerable time fashioning a set of stairs from ice chests and wood steps to help them out.
• The pool where we were all keeping cool had suddenly to be evacuated, not for some security reason, but for a two year old’s No. 2s! Ahhh! • A 60’s trivia quiz had to be delayed due to the late departure of the Lady Chadwick(a very large charter boat moored up right where we were sitting). The CMCS crowd however took the time to chat with the captain and crew and the billionaire throwing his birthday party on it
• Once we had quiet, we started the quiz. Wind Star crew member Dale was the time keeper and Tim provided the music and technical sound support. We had two quizzes of 20 questions each. The first quiz was relatively easy, but the second was hard and blew a few minds. However there was plenty of prizes of great value to go around!
• During the pot luck supper we allowed ourselves to be serenaded (and to serenade the entire marina) with Karaoke started off by Tami and Fred from Sol Adventure. Other standout karaokens’ during this event were Glenn (House of the Rising Sun), Eric and Holly (I’ve got you Babe), the Blessing family in close harmony to finish us off.
• Saturday night was quite bouncy and crews had problems sleeping with the clopping of the waves against the transoms. Sunday morning’s departure was also a challenge with the windy conditions straight from the east. However, most boats were assisted by helpful skippers and crews from the nearby boats and we all got away cleanly.
The Tween-Waters Marina staff were terrific and helpful as always. I think most of the CMCS members enjoyed themselves and would be happy to come back again. I’d also like to give a big thanks to Elise and Tim for the di- rect help they gave me in organizing the event. Without “60’s Elise” and “Tim Patel from the New Dehli helpdesk”, things might never have gotten going at all.
Thanks to all who participated
Ian Davis – cruise leader San Tweenie cruise. s/v Wind Star
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