IYC Admiral's Cruise and French Picnic

Low Tide at Pelican Bay - that was the challenge facing us as we headed out Friday for the Isles Yacht Club (IYC) Admiral's Cruise.  The weather was perfect for sailing down Charlotte Harbor!  Gorgeous sunny sky, low humidity, temps in the high 70's and a north wind pushing us along at a rapid clip.  We reduced sail as we approached the anchorage off Cayo Costa to enter on a rising tide. Two cruisers with five foot drafts wisely decided to anchor at Usseppa to wait for high tide.  But we slowly motored our way into the anchorage at dead low tide calling out depths along the way to the rest of the fleet: 5'8", 5'6", 5'2" ... just a few inches of water below our 4'6" draft boat, Eagle's Wings!  Southern Belle, a new member's boat, elected to follow us, failed to hug the beach and unfortunately went hard aground. Fortunately, a small power boat came along and pulled them off before the captain succumbed to that "I'm aground, the bottom have me in its clutches" feeling we all have experienced. If you haven't been aground, you haven't been around.

All the IYC boats began to arrive for the first fun event of the weekend - docktails on the catamaran, Chatty Cat.  Wow!  24 people crammed on the boat and we had a great time catching up and sampling the appetizers that everyone brought aboard.

Saturday morning we participated in a "Dinghy 101" Refresher Training arranged by Jane on Halcyon.  The highlight of the day was our 4th Annual "French Picnic," a gastronomical delight!   We dinghyed to shore with our food treasures and we hopped the Ranger's tram to take us over to the pristine shoreline picnic area.  We sampled the delicious cuisine and voted for the winners.  This year's top dish was Cranberry Chicken Salad Croissants prepared by Diane Ufer, 2nd runner up was Tom Weekes', Salade Nicoise, and Best Dessert was Lemon Tarte by Peg Vasu.

On the way back, we went over to Manatee Hole - check out the great pictures below!




Pictures