What an incredible weekend!  Great People, Great Weather, No Whitecaps, Great Food, and One Miracle---NOT ONE SKIFF BROKE DOWN!!!!!!!

 

 Dinner Friday night was at Conchy Joe's, a restaurant just up the road from he Caribbean Shores Resort that has been around forever - well, at least 40 years.  Seventeen of us went, had many of their long-time customer favorites (including Boar Ribs), and thoroughly enjoyed our dinner.

 

 Saturday the skiffs were all launched by 9:30 and by mutual agreement, headed up the North Fork of the St. Lucie River, stopped at Finz in the Manatee Pocket for lunch on the way back.  All, but three of us were left for lunch, - so no pizza's, one decided to go on home (there's lots of us locals here with skiffs), and Doug and I went out in another friend's boat for lunch at another restaurant on the intracoastal.  We waved at all the skiff's returning, but no one recognized us - guess you have to be in a skiff to be recognized.....   By the way, Don, the fellow we were with will soon be joining us - the skiff he and Doug are restoring should be in the water in the next few weeks.

 

  All came back to the Caribbean Shores, cleaned up and proceeded to sit and snack the afternoon away just simply enjoying the moment.  We had one special occasion that afternoon - Paul Cornelius christened his skiff (SAT-ER-DAZE) - one he built the mold for, built it all and did one spectacular job on.  There were a few dents in the bow until he decided he needed to crack the Champagne Bottle on the trailer wench in order to break it without breaking his new boat.  Thank heaven's there were lots of people who helped pick the glass up, but unfortunately, we were not able to lap up all that great champagne off the blacktop so we just had to go back to the patio and open all the wine, etc., bottles......

 

Skip Gilliam brought a TV and lots of DVD's of the skiffs so we all watched them, helped to shuck the corn, cut the potatoes for dinner, all the while just snacking away.  Paul must have worked up an appetite trying to christen his skiff so he started filling the deep fat fryers with water and attaching the propane tanks to cook dinner with.  Doug and Jim Wolf jumped right in and ended up cooking one great dinner.  If you've never had a Low Country Boil, you'll just have to try it - we used Paula Dean's recipe which I got on line and it's all boiled - great and easy for a large crowd.  Considering that all had had a late, and large lunch, snacked all afternoon, the food disappeared quickly and we all room to polish off a large sheet cake - hope no one weighed themselves when they got home.....

 

 All in all, it was a really great weekend - Thanks to all who came and made it so successful!