Saturday dawned with the promise of a perfect sailing day, Is this really the shortest day of the year? Deep into Winter?
The sun is shining, sky is blue, wind is a perfect smooth 8 knots. Admittedly, blowing westerly, always difficult to navigate out of Manly Yacht Club, but not a problem for our expert Sailability sailors. The wind has whipped up a slight swell in Manly Cove, and this only adds to the excitement.
A stupendous team of volunteers was at the Yacht Club early to help with getting the boats out and rigged, and Charlie’s Chariot off the mooring. Thanks to Sailing Coordinators David W, then Jackie, Boat Operations Manager, John, riggers: Steve, Jim, Ray, David G, Mal and Jack we had all of the boats in the water in less than half an hour.
Photo of Ewan and Jack with their partisipant sailors racing around Manly Cove.Lucky we did, because our first group of young men from Rap’nRave arrived, very keen and eager to hop in the boats, or have a ride on Charlie’s Chariot. Sailors: Steve, Vincent, Jim, Ivan, Ray, Helene took off across the bay with Maureen, Colin, Rodney, Daniel, Megan,Photo of Helene and Megan in Dolly Wallis and Oliver, while Ralph was Support Boat Driver with Alice and Jacinta as observers, Jim was in charge of the pontoon, needing lots of help from Jackie, John, Jannie, Nic and others, as our comings and goings were constant on both sides of the pontoon, with many hoist participants.
Photo of Nancy enjoying Charlies Chariot.From there, the day worked it’s magic, with a constant stream of participants to sail, have morning tea, then a delicious sausage sizzle cooked by Lianne and Colleen. Photo of Three extra observers, Ben, Daniel and Rodney with a high five from Jacinta.Alan elected not to sail today, bolstered by a stream of people who wanted to talk to him. The Rap’n’Rave contingent of Rodney, Daniel, Jordy, Bart and Mark had a wonderful time swapping from sailing to Support Boat riding and back again, with carer Paul, while Judy, Craig, Matt, Vanessa came down with their individual carers, Carol, Clair, Pam, and Tom. A little later, Ben arrived with Siosi, just in time to jump on Charlie’s Chariot where he stayed encased for the remainder of the morning. Rob was lowered in for his sail, Alyssa elected to stay up on deck and have morning tea, but Susan plucked up enough courage to come for a walk on the wobbly pontoon to prove that she can.
Sailors were constantly taking turns, so that Mal, Peter, Ewan, Jack, Jannie, and Jim also got a ride, and we were thankful of the extra help from Jenny up on the deck. Denis and the two Michaels were content to sit up on the deck in the sunshine, saving their strength and expertise for the putting away process.Photo of The busy pontoon.
We were so pleased to welcome this morning two new helpers from St Luke’s School, Ollie and Oscar who took some time to observe, then settled in as if they had been doing this for the whole of their short lives. Our other school helpers Cathy, Jack, Ewan and Jacob were always in the right place at the right time. This is a skill they have learnt over the weeks, and it is lovely to see them fitting in so well with the less-young volunteers. Also Rowell, now settled in as an established helper, did a wonderful job helping around on the deck with life-jackets, time-keeping, washing boats.
Lyn did a fabulous job as registrar with some extra duties this morning of giving out brochures, asking for Membership renewal forms to be filled in, collecting money, giving receipts.
We could have been up at Katoomba for the Magic Winter Festival, but it was much nicer down here at Manly for our own Winter Magic Fantasea.
