The day after the OCC Awards Dinner

-
OCC Hikers on Y Garn

Thirty-nine members of the Ocean Cruising Club stayed on to take part in post-AGM weekend activities. On Sunday, the 7th of April, groups got together in local ventures such as mountain walks, visit a deep mine, or just driving around Snowdonia. It was altogether an enjoyable, informative, interesting weekend and much of the credit must go to OCC Regional Rear Commodores Chris and Fi Jones of 'Three Ships' who did a superb job of organising.



Of those attending the weekend, 39 took part in 5 activities on Sunday, including:
- Mountain walk up Y Garn in Snowdonia
- Walk around Cwm Idwal in Snowdonia
- Visit Moelfre RNLI station with a walk on Llygwy Beach in Anglesey
- Car tour of Snowdonia
- Deep mine tour at Llechwydd slate mines.




Alex and I chose the 'gentle' walk around Cwm Idwal as Alex has been nursing a torn hamstring muscle. Our group included several older members and some younger more sprightly members.  Bob Shepton was with us and explained that he has come here to train for mountain climbing many years ago. Climbers still come four mountaineering practice before attempting first ascents or different terrain. Sure enough, there were several climbers on the sheer rock walls surrounding the lake. 










The scenery was stunning, and after the initial climb, an easy walk of about 3 hours' duration. We then retired to Zip World for lunch. Not one of us was tempted to zip line over the deep waters of the disused quarry, but we were fascinated with the plethora of adventure seekers who did. What a gold mine!






Twenty-four people later arrived at the Black Boy Inn in Caernarfon for an impromptu Sunday evening meal, continuing the reverie for one more night. It was a lovely weekend of camaraderie and friendships made and rekindled. We stayed overnight at the Inn, in the lovely room above the receptionist's desk - room no. 2, I believe, with a queen bed and a lovely bathroom overlooking the courtyard. They have off-street parking for £5 overnight so it was ideal. Great location right inside the walled city. We were exhausted from all the human interactions over the past three days, all good, but looking forward to some time exploring on our own. I'll cover the next couple of days in another blog entry. 



Next year, the OCC AGM and Awards Dinner moves across the pond for the first time, landing in Annapolis, Maryland, "the sailing capital of the world", on April 18-19, 2020. See you there! Can't wait to get back to Annapolis and Alexandria for a visit. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Top 30+ Sailing Movies

-
Image
Wow, what a cool collection! Great ideas for a sailing movie club.  When I started to compile this list, I thought I'd come up with maybe ten movies. But as I got deeper into it, not only did I realize there were more than I consciously remembered over time, but also that the independent film production movement and digital technologies are causing an explosion of very interesting new entries. The work being done by young people is particularly inspiring and impressive and perhaps signifies that sailing isn't dying after all. No, it's actually becoming the saving grace of a generation pressured as none before it. Because it is just too difficult to rate these movies as each one ticks a different box, I've just listed them in chronological order. Enjoy, and please let me know about any I missed.
Read more

Top Ten Books about Sailing (non-fiction)

-
Image
Ocean adventures inspire the spinning of tall tales Sailing is one of those things in life that so many dream of and few pursue. Those of us who have sailed off across an ocean most often started out in our warm beds absorbed in a book of someone else's adventures on the other side of the world. Their yarns spun our own ambitions and fueled our thirst for the sea. So many authors have been inspired by the sea that there are hundreds of books to choose from. So why are these ten on my list? Because they were the ones that told the stories that I wanted to live or taught me lessons that may one day save a life - my own or a loved one's. And now that I have, I can honestly say that their yarns were well spun. There are few things better in life than reading a good sailing book while sailing! To go off watch, curl up in a secure spot and read about your favourite sailing adventure inspires the next adventure of your own. I always ask, where to next? And there's always s
Read more

Top Ten+ Novels Based on Sailing (fiction)

-
Image
Sailing makes a romantic setting There are few novels with sailing as a background theme, which is surprising given how romantic sailing is considered to be. Images of sailboats appear everywhere and dreams of sailing off to an uncharted island abound, yet stories tend to be real, not fictional.  That's curious to me. I've scoured the pages of Amazon and Goodreads to find what I could as the question often comes up, "Are there any good novels with sailing themes."  The answer is, yes, but not many.  As I have not read these all yet, I am simply providing the publisher's descriptions here, mostly as they appear on amazon.com.  From Homer's Odyssey to Christine Kling's Circle of Bones, one thing for certain is that this is an eclectic collection, much like the collection of characters one is likely to encounter at sea. I'm also working on a listing of sailing movies, which of course might have been based on either novels or true stories, so perhaps w
Read more