Riccardo asked an important question in an e-mail last evening: “Did my girls actually learn to sail?”Absolutely, Riccardo. Our Intergenerational Elderhostel camp for five days included a lot of boring sea lore stuff our bearded seaman named
Harry poured onto us. Such as a rope is a line; the left side is the port side and the rear is the stern. Plus Harry showed us how to tie a clove hitch, bowline and sheet bend knots.Then on three days we adjourned the classroom and went sailing in our Rhodes 19 sailboat on Linekin Bay. We sailed with Nick, our college freshman, and Ben, our 15-year-old sailor around the bay. We watched to make sure the sail wouldn’t luff and made one tack after another. Judy, Natalie and Audrey took turns at the helm while I sort of made directional “suggestions” (ahem). On our final sail, the wind rose and we heeled until the gunwales just about took
on water. That means the boat tilted until water almost cascaded into the boat. Judy couldn’t watch and began to whimper.Audrey and Natalie got a bit squeamish about one lunch – freshly cooked lobsters. Especially when a veteran lobster gourmet demonstrated how to behead the lobster and goo oozed out.
Two of our evenings included dancing. On the first, a pro tried her best to teach us Celtic dance steps. Judy and I flunked. The next evening, one of our waitresses conducted a class in the samba and all 10 teen girls starred in the show, especially Audrey who shocked the girls when she took the floor in her dance shoes.
Late one afternoon we four boarded the resort’s Pearson-class
sailboat. We had fun watching the huge sails fill in the wind.
In between all this we had rousing games of hearts, rummy and something with a name in Portuguese we shortened up to DVD.
No comments:
Post a Comment