King's Point, Long Island, NY

So, in order to volunteer to help US Sailing at a regatta later this month first we had to pay to attend a four day, learn to coach, US sailing course. This was held on the US Merchant Marine College. An impressive campus right on the water’s edge near a small town.

Hyped up as an intense 40hr course, it was far from it. There was a lot of fill and delay. We reckon we could have done it in two days. Anyway, it was a nice way to meet a few sailors/instructors and get to know Sam Williams and Bernie Rosler (two of our team members) a bit better. Charlotte Williams came along as well as she is instructing at a local club over the summer. Charlotte was in the team I was involved with last time I was here so it was nice to catch up with her.

The town and hotel were great and we got to go and see Ocean’s Thirteen (which was quite good). Needless to say, the quality of the hotel room made up for the hostel in San Fran.















The four days were pretty tiring and we’re now back in Summit and might go down to Bay Head tonight. If not we will go down there tomorrow and set ourselves up in our accommodation for the summer. On Wednesday we drive to Newport, Rhode Island (the home of the America’s Cup for 140+ years) for a sailing clinic. Apparently the town is sailing crazy so we’re looking forward to it.

We’ll be back on line after that to update everyone.

M+S (please note the matching uniforms again)

Architectural highlight (and total museum/gallery visits):
The USMMA campus. Quite well done and a nice place to be. Sailing/boating facilities we would all dream of (and the 20+ students were pretty much the only ones there).
Total museum and gallery visits = 2 (still)

Shopping highlight (and total clothes purchases):
Oceans Thirteen tickets. Same price as NZL but money well spent.
Total clothes purchases = 0 (still)

Lessons learnt:
Dark chocolate M+M’s aren’t as good as they sound. That’s right, four days of learning and that little fact is pretty much the only thing that will stay with us.

Fear Factor:
2/10 Other than driving a very large ‘car’ on the right hand side of the road through some pretty average roading systems relying on a GPS navigation unit , it would be pretty hard to get into trouble in Great Neck.

Funniest moment:
After four days of ‘learning’ to coach, Sam was asked if she wanted to take the course that would let her teach other instructors! Sam was the teacher’s pet by the way.

Total number of Thai meals so far:
Still zero! (although we came close)