By Michael Moradzadeh

With Spring finally sprung, now is a great time to come down to the club and see what the die-hards have known all along: the Clubhouse is a great place rain or shine! Weve been working to make it even better!

On-Line Calendar. Visit the calendar at the cychistory.org web-site. Its kept reasonably up-to-date with every event we can think of. Racing, bistro nights, entertainment events, and more. Know whats going on, or just wander on by to see whats up. You can also find the weekly fine dining menu on-line as well.

Dining: I am pleased to report that use of the dining room has been sharply up this year. Its great to see members using the facility. After all, its yours. Heres a reminder of some of the eating options available to you. Heck, on a good week you can eat eight meals here.

Bar Appetizers: 5@5! Responding to popular demand, CCD has resumed appetizers in the bar. Fridays through Sundays, from five oclock on, there will be five choices of appetizers for five dollars each. Five at Five, get it? Let us know how you like them.

Sunday Family-Style Dining. Share a meal with friends or family in our relaxed Sunday dining. Economically-priced 'comfort food' served family style, with an activity table and special entrees for the kiddies. We open early (5:30) on Sunday so you can get home in time for school night. This program has been going very well, with a whole new set of regulars appearing every Sunday.

And here is something new: The last Sunday of every month is Prime Rib Night. Me, I love prime rib, so you will see me there!

Bistro Night remains the absolute favorite of many members old and new. Thursday nights with a menu of lighter fare served in the members bar. Enjoy the tinkling of the piano, the clinking of the glasses, and the drinking company of fellow Corinthians.

Breakwater Brunch on Sunday. Michael Elinson has worked a bit of an upgrade of the brunch. Expanded selections and more comfortable layout, and still the best deal on the bay! . . . and of course Lunches. Grill selections on Friday, and wider selections on Saturday and Sunday round out your caloric intake at the Club.

Thank you Bill Stucky. Having ended my term on the Board of Corinthian Catering and Dining, I am glad to thank Bill Stucky who has agreed to step up as President. Other members of the 2006 CCD Board are Jim Gibbs, David Schwartz, Robbie Cook and Jeff Barnes. Special thanks go to Mark Leonard who helped get CCD up and running and kept us organized, and to CCI and the members of CYC for virtually unanimous and gracious support for this important transition for the club.

Parking Lot. We have new gate-arm electronics. We hope that the new stuff is reliable, though it has been working pretty well. This is a good time to apply your 2006 sticker. If you dont want to stick it directly to the window, use Scotch® tape! And remember, one car per membership number...

En Garde! New Fence. Why did we put up a fence at the edge of the lot, you ask? Well, thanks to a somewhat confusing sign on the site of the old Tiburon Tommys, more and more members of the public were wandering onto our beach, raising liability concerns and the more immediate risk that a neighbor may raise some sort of easement claim. Which we already know we do not like. So, we have to exercise custodianship over our land. Were hoping for a gate soon so that we do not shut our own members who like to recreate on the beach.

Did you get Crabs? The annual crab feed was a great time at the club. For those who could tear themselves away from the Academy Awards (we had them on the big screen with the sound down), hundreds of Dungeness met their untimely ends at the hands of our kitchen. Simple preparation (steamed, cracked) showed off these perfectly fresh crabs wonderfully. Crabmistress Sharon Barr presided over the festivities, cheerfully wearing the crab hat I picked up at Pier 39.

Opening Day! You were there, I saw you. If you werent, you missed a heckuva celebration of our shared love of sailing. Or of parties. Or both. Special thanks to organizers, including outgoing chair Diana Fischer and even more outgoing incoming chair Kathleen Barr!

Coming Up! Master Mariners Wooden Boat Show. June 25. Come on by and see these lovelies.

World-Record Buster Visits Clubhouse

World-famous skipper Olivier de Kersauson and crew sailed the maxi-tri Geronimo to yet another record on Sunday, June 12. Sailing from Yokohama to San Francisco, Geronimo sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge late Sunday afternoon to shatter the existing record by nearly 19 hours. Geronimo had trashed Steve Fossetts record going the other way earlier this year.

Members Peter Hogg and J-Y Lendormy worked with your flag officers and club staff to put on a welcoming ceremony for the victorious crew, which left us sprayed with champagne, well-fed, amused, enthused, and quite favorably disposed to the French, thank you very much. Many members of the French community were present, includig Mr. and Mrs. Junior Staff Commodore and the French Consul-General.

Although somewhat ragged from the trip, de Kersauson and crew were quite happy to hang out and chat with us, and are quite pleased to talk with CYC members around the docks. The boat should be here for several weeks while they refit before their next challenge, possibly here to Tahiti to Hong Kong.

Olivier seems taken with us. He persuaded his sponsor, Cap Gemini, to hold a reception at the clubhouse rather than in San Francisco. With our view and setting, "I would rather have a sandwich at the Corinthian than eat at the finest restaurant in San Francisco," he said. We hope our catering company can do better than a sandwich.

Please welcome Olivier and the crew. They can be seen wandering the docks in search of coffee.

Corinthians At Sea

As enchanting as our Clubhouse may be, from time to time some intrepid members sail away, out the Gate, and well beyond. Fortunately, they have sent back information in the form of blogs ("web-logs,' modern-day messages in a bottle). Here are some excerpts from Kaien: Steve and Valerie Saul who you may remember from Race Committee, or from Steve's Singlehanded Transpac in 04. Valerie doublehanded back with him. This summer, they headed straight out the Gate to the Marquesas, and are now in Tahiti.

Halfway There

04/28/2006 , Lat 13 degrees 42 minutes west; Lon 129 degrees 34 minutes

On the eleventh day offshore, Kaien passed through the halfway mark to the Marquesas - 1,500 miles sailed and 1,500 miles to go. We will be entering into a region of lighter winds over the next week so our forward progress will probably not be as swift as in the past few days. Kaien is holding up well and we are doing fine. The temperature was 83 degrees yesterday. Last night Kaiens mainsail was silhouetted by the millions of stars that make up the Milky Way. Very dramatic.

Through the ITCZ

05/04/2006 , Lat 0 degrees 28 minutes North; Lon 131 degrees 11 minutes

After wishing for a little less wind than we had from 20N to 8N, we discovered that old saying "Be careful what you wish for." We encountered the ITCZ (Intertropical Convergence Zone ) otherwise known as he Doldrums on Monday, May 1st. The weather projections we collected all indicated a band of little to no wind from 5N to the Equator a distance of 300 miles. Val said that the weather forecasts should just have been stamped "No Wind". … We have rescued several flying fish who have gone banzai into our pilothouse and were too late for some others. Imagine the poor flying fish doing a face plant on our pilothouse at a speed fast enough for him to fly. Hes probably thinking "Couldnt I have just hit a fiberglass boat (instead of a steel one)?" We found one small squid on deck; spotted two porpoises and a lot of sea birds. We watched a sea bird dive on a school of flying fish who were all out of the water at the same time. I can tell you there was one very unlucky flying fish in that school.

Poached and Transcendent

05/08/2006 , Lat 8 degrees 2 minutes South; Lon 138 degrees 38 minutes

We have been trying to acclimatize ourselves to the tropical weather; in just a few days it changed from 75 degrees and dry to 89 degrees with 80% humidity! During the middle of the day we cant hang out in the nice windy cockpit for very long even with buckets of sunscreen and our goofy hats. But when we go down below it is like a Turkish bath! We just scowl across the cabin at each others sweaty faces and wait for this climate to become our "new normal". May it happen soon! On the other hand, evenings and early mornings are magical.

Taiohae Bay, Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands

05/13/2006 , Lat 8 degrees 55 minutes South; Lon 140 degrees 5 minutes

We set our anchor in Taiohae Bay on Tuesday, May 9th. Imagine one volcanic crater within another like 2 concentric rings. There is a narrow breach in the wall of the craters on the south end that opens into the sea. That is the opening through which we sailed to get into this bay within the crater. The surrounding mountainsides are steep and impossibly green and the air is humid and thickly scented with wet earth, flowers and ripe fruit. There are about 30 sailboats around us and an active local fishing industry that threads their way through the sailboats and out to sea each morning.

These handsome people speak French but fortunately not as rapidly as Frenchman. They are friendly and smile encouragingly at our poor attempts to speak and understand French. The Marquesan greeting is "Kaoha Bonjour". "Kaoha" is the Marquesan word for the Hawaiian word "Aloha" and they say it as one word [ka oh ha bo ju]. We are really glad to be here.

Read the Full Blog and latest reports at http://www.sailblogs.com/member/kaien/