Pictures From A Sailing Cruise!

My wife and I are deeply indebted to a couple (Linda and Tom) who we are becoming good friends with.  They invited us to go sailing on Sunday on their boat! Their sailboat is very nice...  The excuse to go out was to celebrate the Chinese New Year, and a big chunk of our group were fellow students in my Tai Chi class (and spouses).

The weather was beautiful...

To my gold buddies on the Internet, I am happy to report that we did NOT suffer a boating accident, probably because I forgot to bring my gold along with me (ah, silly me).  Next time I will bring along my gold, and then I can tell anyone interested that I did indeed lose my gold in a boating accident...  Happens all the time I hear...  One of the oldest hard luck stories in the book...

All below pictures taken by Linda or or her friends, and kindly shared with me so I could bring them to you!

This first picture is of our Tai Chi instructor (left) and me on the right.  Blog reader tough-guy "GB" suggested that I take a robust approach to the ZH guy who leaked my blog link out to the world.  In subsequent conversations, GB told me not to bring a knife to a gunfight, to which I responded that my Tai Chi instructor was a cop who had told us that a knife wins at up to 7 yards vs. a gun in the holster.  He then came back at me saying he did not know that there were holsters for shotguns.  I then just told him to take it up with our instructor...  He doesn't look too tough, does he?

The next photo is my lovely wife, I am truly blessed...

Our Cruise Director Linda (and fellow Tai Chi student) is next.  She is responsible for all of us having such a nice afternoon.  She arranged for all 18 (per my count right now) of us to be fed.  Here is Linda down in the hold with one of the two bedrooms behind her.

Captain Tom made sure we were safe and sound and not strike any submerged objects...  I asked the Captain several sort-of technical questions re sailing (as this was only the third time I had ever been sailing, the second time was with them as well on another boat they owned awhile back).  <sarc>He told me that if  we hit a reef that he would be FIRST off the boat, the new tradition I guess...</sarc>

We witnessed a beautiful sunset and at that time some of our fellow passengers shared dignified memories of their loved ones who had passed on...  Poignant, yet perfect.

UPDATE!


Naydu sent me photos as well, so I put up these two.  The first one shows (left to right) me, my wife, Naydu and our instructor.  Everyone looks pretty happy, no?

This next photo shows two happy Tai Chi students: Cruise Director Linda and Naydu.  There are a handful of readers of my blog who are on my Joke List, I thought you would be interested to see the person who sends such nice material to me from time-to-time.

*****

Tom and Linda, is difficult for us to express our gratitude for bringing us along.  Thank you again!  It was unforgettable for us, and that is why I wanted to pass this along to all the readers of my blog, ESPECIALLY the ones going through a cold winter now...

*****

UPDATE!


I mentioned above my reader "GB", the one who advised me not to bring a knife to a gun fight.  Well, it looks like he is one of legion who has suffered a loss of his gold, but under slightly different circumstances.  I sent along my sincere condolences.  Please read his sad story below:

Don't know if others will find the humor in our exchange.  Too bad.

Thanks for the warm pictures.  Here in the northern plains, winter so far has been relatively mild.  We've experienced a less than average number of days with bone chilling deep-freeze-like temperatures...and January is nearly complete.

Good thing you didn't take your PM's with you on the boat. Seems PM's and water (even when it's frozen) don't mix.  I recently lost all of my PM's while ice fishing.  Not exactly a boating accident like so many others are reportedly experiencing, but still painful and costly...and water related.  Like a fool I took my stash with me on my little fishing adventure, figuring it'd be safer with me than at home in it's usual hiding spot.  In hindsight, that was a very bad decision.  Well, one thing led to another, and one beer led to another dozen or more, and I'll be damned if I didn't drop my stash and watch it fall right into the hole and through the ice as I was fighting a fish.  It was a tragic loss...but I did manage to land a nice walleye.  So the day wasn't a total bust.  I just wish I could remember on which lake I was fishing.