Not paddling your own canoe

Wow! Sundays are fast becoming THE day down at Tingira!! Yesterday was pumping, so to speak!!

We started the day around lunch-time with a pre-sailing meal of bubble and squeak and toasted ham sandwiches. This was leftovers of the fantastic baked ham dinner that Peter and Kerri Deane cooked on Friday night. And it was just as good second time around!

Then it was time to start rigging up boats, as the tide came in.

Our new member Ted Upton has had his outrigger down at the Club for the past few weekends and this has brought in a great many non-members eager to try their hand at paddling a long canoe/dragon boat/outrigger.( I'm not sure of exactly the specification of Ted's boat but it requires six people to paddle, one of which must be proficient at shouting

"HO" at appropriate moments, at which time the paddlers switch blades to the other side.)

Yesterday we had seventeen children at the Club. 17!! That was fantastic!! Most of them too young for sailing lessons but all of them eager to get out on the water in a sailing boat. Mike Stephens brought up "Debbie Jane" and took out four at a time. Don Carmichael had "Hot Canary" on the water, also filled with eager sailors, whilst the rest of us used all the Vagabonds to take out a great many adult members and guests.

Our Sailing Master was delighted to welcome his daughter Monica and let her try her hand at the tiller. Monica herself was less than delighted when Peter Deane guessed her age at 17. (She's 26). Just wait, Monica! When you get to our age, ten years off your age is a HUGE compliment!!

Jill Ashton and Annette Sutton had sneak previews of sailing before they start their sailing course on 21st September. Talking of which, so many members have signed up for this course!!! Apart from Jill and Annette, Kerri Deane, Marg Calvert, Billie Cavanagh, Chris Ashton and Sid Cooper are all starters. Woohoo! I can see a ladies race coming up in the not too distant future!! (Sorry, Chris and Sid, I wasn't including you two in that comment!!)

It was too good a day to stop when night started to fall. Some of us diehards finished off the day with fish and chips at Chris & Jill's place, after watching yet another fantastic sunset from the Tingira Boat Club. How lucky are we???