Look whose coming to dinner

That evening we anchored in Carlyle Bay in front of what looked like an unassuming low rise hotel resort. Toward the end of the day we strolled the beach and took notice of the elegant banquet tent on the beach with more stoneware, glassware and flatware per place setting than I think we have on our entire boat. We started chatting with some peole on the beach, kinda of the thing you do when you are out there. We explained that we were not hotel guests but rather a live-aboard family anchored in the bay.
“Well let us get you a drink. Here, let me introduce you to few of my friends. These are my partners, this is my PR person, this is our boat captain, and our boat bears the name of our company in England, Ameritas.” “You must join us for dinner.”
“No that’s alright.”
“Really. I insist. You must join us for dinner, it’s no problem.
And that’s why we carry “nice” beach attire. You never know who you may be having drinks with when you are out cruising. We fed the kids hot dogs, popped in a movie for them and grabbed the VHF radio babysitter as we headed back to the beach for an evening of fine dining.

Jeff of Ameritas had also invited a few other dinner guests and then made the point to mix the group of about 50 so no one sat next to a familiar face. I sat next to his gorgeous marketing director, one of his business partners, the director for the Abm Ambro campaign, a famous yacht photographer. Angie had Michael the race captain of Abm Ambro (the fastest boat in the world). It was the who’s who of international ocean yacht racing and support. The Abm Ambro director told us that when they won the Volvo 70 they had spent over $70,000,000 on the “project”.

The meal was from heaven above. The dinner went on for hours as did the great conversation, laughter and various stories from around the world. The essence of life is born out of smiling and exposing ones self to the world. We could have just as easily or more easily just walked on by these people on the beach. We would have simply retired to our boat for more “tuna something”. We will forever be grateful to Jeff and his company for including a few boat people like us in a night to remember.