I'd rather be S.A.iling

We joined another yacht club today! I knew the lack of water access would to get to Vince this summer winter.








I grew up along the shores of the eastern seaboard of the USA where going "down the shore" in New Jersey and "to the beach" everywhere else was a regular summer pastime so it is understandable that I would miss the water once we moved to land-locked Johannesburg. But Vince grew up in the midwestern United States in Minnesota and Kansas and spent most of his young life far from either ocean. However once he felt the sand between his toes in New York and New Jersey he was hooked.

A natural-born sailor, he loves to be out on the water messing about in boats. And it has become a favorite summer and vacation pastime for our family. We have bareboat sailed in the Caribbean several times and sailed in Italy, Greece and France.

We crewed at Cowes.

And chartered a canal boat through the river locks of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

We even drove a small cabin cruiser through the Panama Canal sharing a lock with humongous freighters. Intimidating!










We are still members of Mantoloking Yacht Club on Barnegat Bay in NJ and will never give up our membership there. Even though it is unlikely we will ever move back to the east coast of the US. We loved our time at MYC so very much.

But it's a little far from Joburg for a day sail, so ...







Hello Transvaal Yacht Club! Situated on the northern shores of Hartbeespoort Dam in the foothills of the scenic Magaliesberg Mountains, TYC is only a 40 minute drive from Sandton.













And look, the Rear Commodore gets her (his) own parking space which is more than I got at Mantoloking Yacht Club when I was Rear Commodore there! Not that I'm applying for the job, mind you.

At the New Members' Open House I overheard Vince negotiating for a boat while I was chatting with the membership committee chairperson. We just downsized and sold four boats plus lost one to Hurricane Sandy before we moved to South Africa! I guess it was probably too much to expect him to be happy to just crew on someone else's boat for very long.

Here we go again!