What a wonderful way to celebrate Christmas than to go for a row with a bunch of like minded folk and then conning the Bosuns club to join them in the festive brunch to follow.

Four skiffs set out to row on Sunday morning and Santa Bruce Cadee was seen wandering around the fleet doling out bottles of water to the fortunate ones in the skiffs. South of Perth put both of their skiffs Valkyrie and Ballina C onto the water while Royal Freshwater Bay YC and the East Fremantle Skiff Association had a single boat each. What made Freshy stand out was that Gerry McGann brought down a skiff team comprised of ladies rowing on ‘Ripple’ and they were happy to contribute to the feast as well.

Their mission was to get under the Canning Bridge and potter around for a while, as the team ashore put together a scrumptious brunch with the bosuns club providing the necessary to make it work. (Well done to Ken who brought along a couple of bottles of a really nice sparkling from South Australia). Many thanks or curses to Mike Honer from the East Fremantle Skiff association who was wandering around with a box of port ‘shooters’ that livened up the proceedings.

Fortunately, the speeches were brief and to the point with Santa Bruce welcoming every one and then letting people know what was coming up for next year. It was a wonderful event and despite the threat of clouds and rain, for that brief two hours on the lawn under the trees, the sun still shone and we all wandered off, extremely happy with the day.

Many thanks to the catering crew of the Bosuns club who lumped tables and chairs etc and made it such a pleasant morning. But there is a warning to this tale.. never, ever have a port, a glass of champagne and a rum ball in quick succession. It leads to unleashed and unbridled enjoyment, followed of course by an intense desire to curl up somewhere and sleep for the afternoon.