Reports from the Bridge

The June Picnic in the Park was a relaxing way to end the day with friends. Thank you to Andy & Nancy Kupp and Bob and Gerri Bachman. Everything was just right.

Big Brother Cruise at Eagle Harbor was a great get-away. Queen City has an Outstation that is not to be missed. What a serene setting with everything to offer. John liked playing in the Park at Winslow and in the Patriotic Queen City Kids Yacht that drifted ashore. He also made friends with some Queen City Grand-kids and had fun at the “mini-yacht” club. Peaches the Dog got his Sea Legs this trip and was scaling the Stouffers’ Boat prepared to leap to the next vessel, when a couple passing in a dinghy spotted him and pointed it out. I guess he was interested in going up to the Clubhouse and for going for more walks in the woods. Thanks to the Bachmans and QCYC Fleet Captains for co-chairing this fun event.

With the pleasure of boating comes an incredible amount of work, as you all know. A couple of items to get out of the way early in this article have to do with maintaining the Yacht Club, so that we can all enjoy it. This means that if you arrive at the dumpster and it is brimming over, please do not put trash on top if the receptacle is full and cannot be closed. Also, do not leave trash on the sides of the dumpster. This extra trash doesn’t get picked by Waste Management staff and is left for our House and Grounds team to pick up by hand. The Yacht club is home to us all, whether we live aboard or away, we all need to be mindful of polluting our area. If everyone could crush and condense what they have prior to throwing it away, there will be more room toward the end of the week when the bins are filling.

If you are bringing your RV or Boat trailer to the Yacht Club, please let me know in advance so that I can schedule and follow the 24-hour rule. Several members of the Club and the executive committee have asked that we use the guidelines of the 24 hours more faithfully. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the existing policy please feel free to call me.

We are expecting Boats from 12 of the 14 Yacht Clubs over the 5th, 6th and 7th for the Officers Cruise Inn. At this time we will meet our “Rear Counterparts” from the Region and select a name and two colors to represent us and the other R/C’s going through the chairs. Charlie has recommended Scum Sucking Bottom Dwellers, since Light Keepers, Navigators, Turtles, Dolphins and Whales among many other Ocean themed names are taken. We are now referring to ourselves as the Interim SSBD, however, when I write the next Towline Article I will let you know what the group agrees on for our Name. If any of you are going away for the Weekend and can share your slip for 2 nights, it would be greatly appreciated. If so, please contact me at your earliest convenience. This will be the first big event I plan and hope it will go off without a proverbial hitch.

Thank you to all of you who have welcomed us to the Yacht club, and made us feel at home including all of you who stop and chat with our little guy. We have enjoyed meeting some of the Yacht club kids and Grandchildren and hope to meet more. The Youth Sailing Program has been a wonderful opportunity for the older kids and I am very appreciative of the hard work the Team has put into making it such a success.

In closing I would like to share a quote I ran across in Nautical Notations:
The illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all the universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb, for we have no word to speak about it. (Quote attributed to Thomas Carlyle)

I can really relate to the being stuck dumb part, I remember being stuck dumb more than once, by particularly large particle’s in the universe.

Here’s to making memories on the water this summer.

Don