The nice thing about being a member of a yacht club is the
sense of community. Research has shown
that one of the things that is important to longevity is being part of a
community; and while this mostly relates to houses of worship, I am sure it
applies to yacht clubs as well. The
yacht club that I am a member of serves this function very well for me and its
members; although one could argue that for some members it may not be good on
their liver and actually decrease their longevity.
Previously I had my boat at a marina and as I described it,
it was a place where boats went to die.
There was a sunken boat that stayed under water for weeks on end; there
was a boat with an actual tree growing in the cockpit (being a botanist, I am
fairly confident that that tree was at least two to three years old). The owner of the marina confiscated the boats
of owners who stopped paying and then sold the boats to unsuspecting people who
showed up two or three times and then quit coming and paying. The boats were then confiscated and sold
again and again, thus making up the slip fee and entering this vicious circle.
Suffice it to say that I was happy to be out of there and I
have never regretted my move to the yacht club now two and a half years
ago. There is always a person at the
yacht club to give you free advice, give you a hand, or even offer you a
beer.
In addition, the yacht club is one of my only community type
Christmas parties. Working for the
state, we do not have any of the perks like luxurious Christmas parties that I
had when working for engineering firms.
We had a “Christmas breakfast” without any speeches or real community,
just a quick run for the food, scarf it down and back to work. It really had nothing to do with Christmas at
all. All the warnings about poor
behavior at these kinds of parties, getting drunk, and having sex on top of the
copy machine with an office partner do not apply to state employees. Oh well, we live up to other clichés; dull
and just plain boring. On top of that, we
even have not seen a real raise for the past 5 years, let alone a good party.
So we had a wonderful party it is always good to see
friends, eat good food and have a few nice drinks. Everybody behaved; my kind of office party; no stress and a great sense of community. The photo of today was taken outside the club
house. The committee had set up one of
the dinghies outside the entry and decorated it with lights. My wife took this picture of me in front of
the boat.
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