Guided Discovery: Thanksgiving Celebrations 2014

We had the pleasure of two Thanksgiving celebrations, one in Sarasota at the Bird Key Yacht Club with Marjorie and Dick on Thanksgiving day and one in Captiva on Saturday with Cathy and Jerry.

A bird and a key on a navy background adorn the BKYC burgee

Bird Key Yacht Club Dining room with a spectacular view

Readers will recall that I stopped in Captiva on the trip from Hingham to Sarasota (November 12). That stop involved the Bird Key Yacht Club and my friends Jerry and Cathy. The yacht club was holding a rendezvous at South Seas Resort Marina and since my crew members, Dick and Phil, were BKYC members they wanted to join the celebration (and arranged for us to stay at South Seas at the yacht club rate). I wanted to have dinner with Jerry and Cathy who have a home on the island. Coincidentally, this years Thanksgiving celebration some 13 & 17 days later involved both Bird Key and Captiva Island.

The Sarasota celebration took place at the Bird Key Yacht Club where Dick and Marjorie are members. We were joined by their friends Pip and Judy who both live in the United Kingdom and spend time in Sarasota. We were also joined by Marjorie's Guide Dog in Training, Doc, a 6 month old black lab.

Pip, Marjorie, Dick, Les, Diana and Judy

Bird Key Yacht Club produced a spectacular four course Thanksgiving dinner. All of us choose the Traditional Roasted Turkey. The food was excellent and it was served very casually. We met at 1:30 and left at 4:30 PM.

We have been to the yacht club many times. It is a lovely place.

Old Elco cruiser docked at Bird Key across the bay from Marina Jack

A young at heart Diana on Thanksgiving Day at BKYC

Members always get excited when the see the Marjorie with a Guide Dog in Training

Diana with Pip and Judy

The second celebration took place on Captiva Island with my friends Jerry and Cathy Swerdlick. I met Jerry in 1968 when I worked as the manager at the Liberty Loan Company office in Westerly, Rhode Island. Jerry holds the title of my oldest friend (46 years).

We were joined by Jerry's very good friends Art and Sue Bookbinder from Naples. Jerry and Art are both vision impaired. Art is president of Lighthouse of Collier, an organization that provides programs to blind visually impaired persons that helps them live independently and improve the quality of their lives. Jerry is president of EVAS (Electronic Vision Access Solutions), a company that provides plug and play computer solutions for visually, physically, learning or hearing disabled persons. Below is a link to the EVAS website.

http://www.evas.com/

An interesting gathering given our involvement with Southeastern Guide Dogs. We spent a lot of time talking about the way that each of us work to help visually impaired persons.

After a lovely traditional Thanksgiving dinner we adorned to the beach just south of Jerry house for a musical program called Sunset Arias on the Beach, It was sponsored by Tween Waters Island Resort and featured two local opera singers (I'm embarrassed that I do not know their names) putting on a 90 minute show. Below is a YouTube video of their 2013 show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t58glApXCjA

The program began at 5:00 PM, just before sunset and ended at 6:30 PM, which on Saturday was at the end of astronomical twilight. The singing was spectacular. Kudos to Tween Rivers for setting up a great sound system. But for an "old salt" like me, a secondary benefit was sitting quietly and listening to beautiful music as I watched the transitions from daylight to sunset to nautical twilight to astronomical twilight and finally dark. The experience was unforgettable.

Cost: None!!!! Unbelievable!!!