Salty Dog 2019 Christmas Party

The Salty Dog Sailing Club enjoyed one of the best Holiday parties EVER on Sat., Dec. 14 at Piccolo’s Restaurant in Denver. A big thank you to Andrea Lewis, party planner extraordinaire, who organized and planned the dry land event.

As shown in the photos below, the party had a record turnout with 41 sailors, including guests from 2 other local sailing clubs with professional live (and surprising) entertainment, good food and great attitudes. The event drew in several of our long time members who, for one reason or another, had not been able to join us for a year or two, and it was great to see them again. We’ll be glad to have them back in the sailing ranks next year.

As folks arrived, they were greeted with an entertaining Christmas Quiz (see below) which served as both an ice breaker and a lesson in humility. No one got all the answers correct! Can you? Sailing stories, some of them even true, continued throughout dinner and the level of laughter increased. We had Christmas music and the traditional Christmas Crackers to start.

Suddenly, the sound of bells, as the lights dimmed. Could it be Santa? No, to our delight, it was Eva Cernik, a fantastic professional belly dancer, who began her dance with a tray of lighted candles on her head as she wove her spell through the group. Graceful, charming and a bit flirty, she soon had the group drawn into her spell. Then came the lessons! Lots of us learned just how difficult belly dancing is, as we lurched and shimmied in an attempt to imitate her elegant and graceful moves. Overall, we only provided comedy! She soon had most of our group joining her as we found out how atrophied some of those stomach muscles had become. She enchanted us for over an hour and the festivities ended with rich chocolate cake and fond wishes for the Holiday. This was a great end of year celebration for the club, and a chance to renew acquaintances with many long term friends, as well as make new ones. It was only a hint of the fun coming in 2020.