{"id":320,"date":"2026-06-05T12:09:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T16:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/?p=320"},"modified":"2026-06-05T12:09:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T16:09:39","slug":"blessing-of-the-fleet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/05\/blessing-of-the-fleet\/","title":{"rendered":"Blessing of the Fleet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We had a grand reunion on Thursday at the Tower Harbour Yacht Club. That was part of the point to take a slip in Douglas at Tower Marine. We had to meet up with Rose and Dave, as we had the PFD rearm kits sent to their house. Rose and Dave invited Brian and Lynn along as it has been years since we\u2019ve seen them. Al and Nancy from <em>Desire <\/em>are fixtures at THYC. Nan and John from <em>Blaisen <\/em>rounded out the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course, as I write this, it would have been great to get a photo of our group. Sadly, we only have memories of round table with snacks and ten chairs in a circle as we shared stories of sailing in bad weather, sailboat races and parties at the yacht club. As it has been a decade since we were members of the yacht club, we have all gotten a decade older. The coolers of beer and wine have replaced by Arnold Palmer\u2019s and water. Now that we all are in our sixties and seventies, the discussion turned to ailments: breast and prostate cancer, Lyme disease, broken back, sepsis, open heart surgery, Alzheimers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One might think that would put a damper on the occasion, but really there was joy and love shared. The health issues are just like the rough weather we have all sailed through. Inevitable. When you\u2019ve sailed long enough, or lived long enough, you\u2019ll hit rough weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s a saying among mariners: Don\u2019t worry, the boat can take more than you can. Maybe I can rephrase that to: Don\u2019t worry, the \u2018ship can take more than you can. The relationships, of course.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"834\" src=\"https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0843-1024x834.jpg\" alt=\"Bouquet of flowers floating on water\" class=\"wp-image-321\" srcset=\"https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0843-1024x834.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0843-300x244.jpg 300w, https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0843-768x625.jpg 768w, https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0843-1536x1251.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0843-2048x1668.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">From the 2017 Blessing of the Fleet at THYC that Harold officiated. Not just blessing the boats, but being blessed by our fleet of friends<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An enduring circle of friends remembering times gone by, or remembering those as Tennyson put it, \u2018crost the bar\u2019, or for whom we sounded the eight bells. Yes, that\u2019s why we came here on our first voyage of our grand adventure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We had a grand reunion on Thursday at the Tower Harbour Yacht Club. That was part of the point to take a slip in Douglas at Tower Marine. We had to meet up with Rose and Dave, as we had the PFD rearm kits sent to their house. Rose and Dave invited Brian and Lynn [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322,"href":"https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions\/322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upon-reflection.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}