Join us at Rock! Easter weekend 14th-17thApril
Steve shares his personal experiences from our annual laser fleet holiday to Rock – and why you should join us this Easter!
Rock Laser Open and Easter Chase
I think it was 2005 when I first went to Rock for the Laser Open and Easter Chase. Just me, no kids, and a girlfriend left at home (Laura!). 12 years on it feels like I have a lifetime of happy family Easter memories! Memories filled with the community of many dear people that have become my closest friends too.
What is about this special place that keeps us all returning year after year at Easter? Well, it certainly isn’t the guarantee of warm sunny weather and 10-15 knots! Yet, I recall with a fondness etched into my mind the many sparking occasions where it could not have been more delightful!
Yes. Perfection. The wonderful smells and sights of the blue water shimmering with sunlight over the golden sands of the Camel estuary. A landscape that changes every time you look at it throughout the day. Is it because we all enjoy ourselves whatever the weather that when those ‘idyllic’ conditions arrive that we cherish them even more?
My children, like those of so many other Chew sailors before us, are now growing up with many happy Easter holidays at Rock. Memories filled with playing on the many different beaches in jumpers and waterproofs(!), damming streams, crabbing off the sailing club pontoons, the icy blast of ferry trips across the estuary to Padstow, picnics & pasties in cosy local harbour towns, evolving from backpack to ‘own bike’ on the camel trail, and of ice creams galore!
It is always good fun, but when the conditions permit it genuinely feels like we’ve cheated somehow and grabbed an extra Cornish summer holiday! A pretty cheap one at that (for Rock at least!).
A new season
There is certainly something about the Easter time of year too. Nature’s new seasonal life getting underway. For the sailors, the excitement of a new sailing season, of new possibilities, adventure, enjoyment and of opportunities to learn.
Sailing at Rock brings all of those things. For most of us the sheer thrill of going afloat in a new venue ‘away from Chew’ is an adventure. Certainly the challenge of the tides, ‘back-eddies’, hundreds of buoys and golden sandbars bring new interest too. Still relatively safe like at Chew, and amongst familiar faces too.
Braver souls from our fleet have eschewed the simple delights of the estuary to head out over ‘the Doom Bar’(!). Either cherry picking conditions for an idyllic tranquil sail out around the island; or perhaps to surf waves in the heave of the bay.
Yes. Rock is the next holiday stop for me and I can’t wait! Here’s to sunshine, 15 degC and 11-14knots (I know…very funny!). Chew Lasers; we enjoy ourselves whatever the weather.
See you on the water! Steve
