Is this the end of Summer for this year? It was a truly beautiful morning with a very light breeze gently ruffling the top of the water. We put out 5 boats, expecting few participants because of the school holidays, but willing to give them lots of on water time.
John, Denis, David, Ray, Jim, Sue, Tom and Byron were the early bird volunteers who got the boats out, along with new volunteer Rowell, who arrived bright and early, and was the last to leave at the end of the day. Sailing Coordinator Ray did a fantastic job, putting people to their favourite tasks, David as Pontoon Manager, Eli as Boat Operations Manager, Photo of Barry as Support Boat driver with Corey as observer.Barry as Support Boat driver with Corey as observer, later to change to Ray and Tom. Kandy was the registrar, and support person for the Manly Fun Run, Sue was on the pontoon, as well as drumming up custom for the Volunteer Dinner, the time keeper was Kathy, sailors Jim, John, Bob, Ivan, Isabella. Fabulous photos were taken both from the Support Boat and shore by Caroline, while Cathy was kept busy with lifejackets up on deck, helped by Byron,Photo of Sheila helping to pick up the rubbish that was swept in in the water Sheila was the radio operator, and other deck work, while the pontoon was most ably handled by Tony, Rowell, and John C. Of course, Denis kept us all on our toes with the rigging and de-rigging, and everyone joined in for the putting away.
Photo of Ivan and Eli taking out Eli D on her maiden runA highlight of the day for me was the glorious sail I had with Ivan in the new boat, donated to us in part by Manly Rotary as a direct result of last year’s Fun Run. This was a trial run, as the boat has not officially been launched yet. The best part of the donation is that the boat will be named Eli D, which is a lovely tribute for an activity which gives me a great deal of pleasure. I feel very humbled by the thought that the crew at Manly Sailability are honouring me in this way.
The lucky people who came down for a sail this morning were Jessika, 8Photo of Photo of Ivan and Jessika in Eli DJin,Photo of Bob and Jin in Black Swan Abby and Sophie, from Grevillia Vacation Care, with fantastic helper Tracey, then Greg, Ollie, John and Elias (otherwise known as BATMAN) with helper Babani. Kerry, Jason, Richard and Fowzia arrived with Karen, from Achieve and loved their sail in the fairly flat water. In the meantime, Phill arrived with dad. Peter and took off to the other side single handedly. He handled the flat conditions really well, and only came back when he was too tired to stay out any longer.
