2009 Winter meeting

[Craig Illman]

Mark your calendars! The Fleet 5 winter meeting is scheduled for 4pm, Saturday February 7th at Judy & Bruce Waddell's on Mercer Island. I'll email out directions sometime in January. We're planning the typical potluck. Lastly, send me ideas for the meeting agenda.

Craig

[Craig Illman]

I sent out a reminder email earlier this week. Let me know if you didn't receive it. I've only had about three RSVPs.

Craig

[Craig Illman]

We had our third annual meeting of the resurrected C34 Fleet 5 – Puget Sound last night, hosted by Judy & Bruce Waddell at their home on Mercer Island. Ray Meek had been going through old Mainsheet magazines passed on by Falcor's previous owner and found references to the Waddell's hosting Fleet 5 meetings there in the late eighties or early nineties!

There was lots of boat talk, cruising talk, and maintenance talk, but mostly just a lot of shared love for this region and how we're so fortunate to be able to enjoy the outdoors on our boats.

The potluck was successful, with our hosts grilling salmon and a nice long table for eating and socializing. I don't know if it was the sugar from the desserts or all the boat talk that made it hard for me to get to sleep after I returned home.

Business stuff:

Yes, after dessert, we had a short meeting to establish rendezvous locations and dates. After last year's fortuitous weather, we settled on the weekends preceding and following the Memorial and Labor day weekends, i.e. May 15th-17th & September 11th -13th.  We settled on LaConner for May and Dockton (Maury/Vashon) for September. Bob Cooper said their yacht club had an outing to LaConner last year and was able to reserve contiguous dock space, so I'm soliciting a early boat count to get something lined up ASAP. I think for both, I'll try to get us on the 48 Degrees North calendar, inviting other Catalina owners as well. 

One request at the meeting was to distribute a roster to the group with names, addresses, boat names, home ports,  home/mobile phone numbers and email addresses. I already have a lot of this, but would appreciate if people could "fill in the blanks" for me. If you'd like to "opt out", please let me know in the next week or so, before I publish to the group.

Lastly, SPREAD THE WORD! If you know of other C34 owners, whose names don't show up on the email distribution list or the forthcoming roster, don't leave Fleet 5 a secret. Other local owners are a great resource for maintenance tips, service recommendations (thanks Randy for recommending Cap Sante Marine), and places to save money on parts, as well as great cruising destinations and routes.

My thanks again to Bruce & Judy for hosting the meeting! I was nice to see again (in no particular order) Susan & Roberta Hopkins, Bob & Ann Cooper, Ray & Julia Meek, Tom & Lynn Clay,  Jack & Ruth Hutteball (& her sister Debbie), Greg & Joyce Morgan (from Bozeman),  Jack & Margaret Henderson and Randy Davison. I'm looking forward to hooking up with more of you in the coming spring and summer.

Craig Illman
Espresso #1150  Seattle/Anacortes