Mowry Bay Cruising Club
From SecondSailing
Mowry Bay Cruising Club was founded by Tory Micheline and Manul Rotaru for the express purpose of sailing the SL Oceans with friends, meeting new sailors and generally enjoying our boats. We sail two cruises a week. One, on Tuesday @ 5 PM STL and one on Sunday @ 2 PM SLT. We welcome sailors with boats, sailors without boats and folks just wanting to try this out. See below one our charts which we use as an aid to navigation. Our Motto is: No One Left on the Dock.
- History ********
“No One Left on the Dock” the story of the Mowry Bay Cruising Club by Manul Rotaru
Once upon a time, Tory Micheline held weekly scheduled Tako Races in
Mowry Bay, as a Race Director of the Mowry Bay Yacht Club. One day she
said to the people who came to her event, that there will not be a
race that day, instead of that, people will do an exploring trip from
Mowry Bay to the North, until they can´t go North anymore, then sail
back to the Mowry Docks after reaching that final sim border. Any Boat
was welcome on that event. I, Manul Rotaru, was sailing around in the
area that day, and I joined in with a small Trudeau. A mixed fleet
started, very few boats made it, most had issues with sim borders, ban
lines, narrow passages, navigation problems and so on. My Trudeau
sailed back into Mowry Bay and I said to Tory that I enjoyed that
event and that I liked what she did. Quickly and spontaneously we
decided to do another non-racing exploring sail the week after, using
her Tuesday event time slot. From earlier explorations and sails I had
knowledge about various SL Mainland waterways, and Tory had her
experience in hosting events as a Mowry Bay Yacht Club Race Director.
And so it started: I created the cruise charts, explored new regions,
and test sailed routes. Tory did the “cheerleading” as she described
it once, she did the inviting, talking to people, writing the
announcements, notecards, managing our media and contacts, doing
organization.
Already on those early cruises, the Mowry Bay Cruising Club attracted a lot of different kind of sailors: old salts, beginners, experienced racers, sailors who are far away from the known racing scene and so on. Any boat was welcome, any skill level welcome, people can crew or sail their own boat, with no one left on the dock. Quickly it became obvious that the sailors liked to socialize and party when they arrived in a remote harbour together, and soon we had various kinds of parties at the end. Saxxon Domela might DJ cool Classic Rock tunes in Mowry Bay, or if we played guitar and percussion instruments on beaches, or we hoped for an internet radio feed for dancing. A big Thank You goes to all those friendly people out there who have been welcoming us and who have organized great after cruise parties for us, like Tasha Kostolany, Jacqueline Trudeau, Calveen Kline, Stella Genira, Hylee Bekker, Croco Capalini, Alison Lynn Haystack, Lizzo Dreamscape, LauraAnne Sheridan, Bunnie Mills and many more.. Also a big Thank You to all those friendly mainland marina owners out there who let us use their facilities to start or end a cruise like Indigo Mertel, Max Starostin, Jane Fossett, carmen Clary, Nightshade Fugu, Jes Kattun, Tegen Barzane and many more...
Of course sailing in SL is much more than being around the startline in front of the clubhouse, probably there are more marinas in SL than active sailors, and the waterways and cruising possibilities are endless. MBCC also is about encouraging sailors to explore and to use all this, it is about to sail to small marinas, meet the people there and make new friends. We always had been attracted by smaller and lesser known harbours, and also by remote outback waterways, and we always have experienced a great and friendly and warm welcome there. We do not plan much, we decide spontaneously and we enjoy our freedom and independence.
After many successful weekly cruises, it became very obvious that we needed a second cruise in a more Euro friendly timeslot, and we found a vacant one in the calendar on Sundays at 2 PM SLT. Our friend VenusMari Zapedzki from Mowry Bay said that she could run the Euro group, using already existing charts of the Tuesday Eastcoast time slot group. From the beginning, VenusMari did all the work independently, and soon the MBCC Euro group became a very successful group. Croco Capalini helped Venus in hosting the Sunday Cruises, for a period they worked together. During the late summer of this year, Venus could not run the Sunday Euro group anymore, and we were lucky that Orca Flotta took over the leadership of the great Sunday Group. Orca also creates new charts, so now we have two chart makers in MBCC.
Of course, Tory could not cruise each week all the time, and so we have been lucky for the support of some great sailors like Alison Lynn Haystack, Cate Foulsbane and other members. For example Cate did a great job in leading several cruises, paddling by the fleet in her seakayak, taking care for the sailors in a very helpful way. Several members helped with feedback and cruise ideas like for example Deina Ninetails and J-Class Champion Chaos Mandelbrot. Chaos and his Trudeau Twenty really have a lot of sailing experience, his LM´s have always been helpful for making new cruise charts, his ideas always had been unique and useful.
Special thanks to Jane Fossett, who really did a lot to help SL sailboat cruising with all her work and publications, and who has been sailing with us all the way.
Special thanks to Roc Plutonian, creating cool award trophies for us.
It happened that we started in the beginning with 4 boats only, mostly we start with 10 boats, more or less, sometimes we have more than 20 boats rezzed at the beginning of a cruise. We have had Lindens crewing on our boats, showing them sailing from a Long Distance Cruisers point of view onboard.
Pictures of our cruises and also the charts of the cruises which we have done, can be seen here ->
http://picasaweb.google.com/tory.micheline/MowryBayCruisingClub# http://picasaweb.google.com/tory.micheline/MBCC2# http://picasaweb.google.com/tory.micheline/MBCC3# Also -> http://www.koinup.com/group/MBCC/
A big thank you also goes to Alison Lynn Haystack for starting to do machinima video clips during the cruises and uploading them directly, see her channel here ->
http://www.wegame.com/users/alisonlynn/
It is also cool to have so many home boat builders as members in MBCC,
to see, how many new upcoming boat builders, sailmakers, nautical
photographers are sailing with MBCC. The following individuals come to mind: Becca Moulliez (of the intuitive and very stable Bwind boats), Lamat Lisle, Dil Spitz, Bunnie Mills, nobuko Criss, Joro Aya, David Wetherby, Balduin Aabye, Lanelle Saunders, Neron Blanco and more...
My big thanks also to my many great crew which I had on my boats. Special thanks also go out to Tasha Kostolany, always being so helpful and quick responding to all the challenges onboard at sea, one cannot imagine a better crew.
But most important, MBCC is a success because of a special mood, made by ALL of the members involved. It is said that we are known for the most hilarious group chat, and indeed we have a lot of funny comments and dry jokes during our sails, I just think of Jacqueline Trudeau, Chaos Mandelbrot, Roc Plutonian, Chowder Glenwalker, Cate Foulsbane, Orca Flotta, Joro Aya and so on... ;) ...it is said that we are a no stress fun group, people said, they just love the friendly and easy going atmosphere, we got new members just by people joined a cruise as a crew of someone, feeling well, asking at the party afterwards who we are..., it is said that MBCC stands for Mowry Boozin Croozin Confusion, and so on... :P
There is more to say, but for now, here is a short list of some early members and also of non-members but helpers of successful MBCC cruises, and PLEASE, to get it clear, this is a big THANK YOU to ALL MBCC MEMBERS and to ALL SUPPORTERS, if someone is not mentioned here, it just means NOTHING, we have so much great, cool, interesting and funny sailors as members, the text would just get too long...
In alphabetical order:
Alison Lynn Haystack, Anu Daviau, Anyraya Braveheart, Arie Albatros, Aubrey Parkin, Balduin Aabye, Becca Moulliez, Blackbird Latte, Borday Moo, Bunnie Mills, Calveen Kline, carmen Clary, Cate Foulsbane, Chaos Mandelbrot, Chowder Glenwalker, Croco Capalini, David Wetherby, Dani Batra, Deina Ninetails, Dil Spitz, Elisha Paklena, Francois Jacques, Gairlochan Lisle, Glorfindel Arrow, Greythistle Twine, Guyot Habana, Hilary Vyper, Hylee Bekker, Indigo Mertel, Isis Rexie, Jacqueline Trudeau, Jane Fossett, JayTee Oh, Jes Kattun, Jilly Kikuchiyo, joepie Korobase, Joro Aya, Lamat Lisle, Lanelle Saunders, LauraAnne Sheridan, Lizzo Dreamscape, Max Starostin, Micckey Sands, Naeve Rossini, Nightshade Fugu, Neron Blanco, nobuko Criss, Pensive Mission, Pi Pleides, Pilot Schroeder, Rich Randall, RJ Kikuchiyo, Roc Plutonian, Saxxon Domela, Seraina Benelli, Stella Genira, Susanne Pascale, Tasha Kostolany, Tegen Barzane, Teresa Whitfield, Thorvald Larsen
...and of course Thanks so much and a super big bunch of flowers to Tory Micheline, she has been hosting this event which started one year ago, she had her experience as a Mowry Race Director and her great outgoing social skills and her organizing work, her great sense for humor, her open minded and easy going way to handle things, Tory is just doing things and she doesn´t worry long, she is a real doer :-)
Thanks so much to all who have been sailing with us!
Thanks so much to all who have welcomed us in such a great and friendly way!
See you at sea, “No one left on the dock!"
-Manul Rotaru
