A special kind of evening on the water

Gofirstclass

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
11,670
Tri Cities, WA
Boat Info
Boatless in WA
Engines
No motor
Every year the Tri Cities, WA holds the Water Follies. It's a weekend of fun highlighted by racing of the Unlimited Hydroplanes and an air show that involves several different airplanes.
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The hydroplanes start arriving in the area on Wednesday and do public appearances for a day or two before heading for the pits on the Columbia River.

The airplanes start showing up on Friday and do a couple of short airshows to spike the public interest. The pilots fly out of our local airport and are hosted at a variety of events around town.

One of those is sponsored by our yacht club and members take the pilots, crews and the administrative people for an evening cruise on the Columbia.

This year we said we would participate and we ended up hosting the administrative staff. They boarded the boat around 7:30 p.m. and we shoved off soon after.

We cruised about 7.5 miles upriver, watched the sun set, then turned around and headed back to the club to drop everyone off. Needless to say, a good time was had by all involved.

Here are a few photos from the evening. The temp was near 100* when we left the dock, no clouds, no wind, just a lot of fun.
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Here's the group we had on board.
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Good night, sun
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When we got back to the club there was a party going on the dock so after we said our goodbyes to the guests we stuck around to share in the fun.
 
I need to come up there and ride on your big 'ole Sea Ray. You guys seem to have this boating thing down to a science!
 
Nice!!! Names of those faces please? Who are you in the crowd?
 
Most times when we set out to do something nice we build Good Karma. We don't know it at the time we make the plans, and some times it doesn't come back to us for awhile, but it's always there.

I didn't know it at the time but when we had the administrators from the air show on board, my Admiral was talking with Russ Poe, one of the people who was in charge of the show. She commented about how much the grand kids would like to see the planes so Russ invited us to come out this morning to see them. This was not a "scheduled event" as part of the Water Follies but turned out to be a private show arranged just for us.

We met them at the airport at 9:45 and were given a walking tour of the hangar, met one of the pilots and got to look at several of the planes. To say that the kids appreciated it would be a serious understatement.

Here are some of the photos I took:
We met them at Bergstrom Aircraft, a privately owned commercial flight ops business. Here's their office:
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This Cessna CJ3 was parked outside their office. I don't know whose 3 rug rats those are. Nice plane:
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On the way to another hangar we passed by these planes that were flown by Canadian pilots:
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and this jet powered team:
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and their transport van:
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Here's Brad Wursten, the guy who owns the organization that puts on the air shows all around the country with the plane he flies. This plane is made from 100% composite and weighs only 1200lbs:
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Brad with the three little pigs:
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More plane photos:
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These guys put on a demonstration of a rescue, dropping the rescue swimmer into the Columbia River then bringing him up in a gurney.
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After the guided tour Russ and his wife gave the kids wrist bands, autographed photos, t-shirts and key chains. The kids loved all of that stuff but what they really liked was getting to see the airplanes up close and to be able to touch them and meet a pilot. Your personally guided tour will be remembered by the kids and their parents long after the memories of watching the boats go around in circles.

So to Russ and his wife, thank you very much for the tour. I hope we see you again next year on our boat.
 
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Nice!!! Names of those faces please? Who are you in the crowd?
Jimmy, I'm always hesitant to put people's names out there in the public eye unless I have their permission ahead of time. I told them the photo would be posted online, but didn't ask them for the OK to put their names out. Their names are not likely ones you would recognize unless you were part of the air show circuit or lived in this area. Sorry.

Quint, you're always welcome and, yes, we do have this boating thing down to a science. The club I belong to is very active and participates in several public events throughout the year. Not to mention they're a great bunch of people to go boating with.
 
This Cessna CJ3 was parked outside their office. I don't know whose 3 rug rats those are. Nice plane:
aDSCN2951_zpsq1k32ajr.jpg

As a person who's considering buying a boat, but all I've been reading here is about maintenance issues people have with them, thanks for sharing this story!

Small correction though...that's a Lear 35, rather than a Citation.
 
Congrats on scoring the tour! It never ceases to amaze me what can happen when you're kind to people. I wish there were more people in the world like you.

Sandy
 
Small correction though...that's a Lear 35, rather than a Citation.
Yeah, I found that out on another boating forum that I posted this thread on. In fact, I found out that this particular Lear belongs to Connie Kalitta's leasing company that operates out of Willow Run, MI. That would be Connie of drag racer fame who founded the company. It's run by Connie's nephew Doug.

Irrelevant, I have met so many nice people through boating that I can't even begin to count them all or remember them all. I've found that boaters are a great bunch of people and it doesn't matter the size of your boat, it's the size of your heart that matters. Over the years we have donated many, many dinner cruises to charities to auction off for their fund raisers. We get no financial payback from it but we have met many nice folks, some of whom we are still friends with today.

It truly is a great lifestyle!


Gawrsh, Sandy, y'all are making me blush! :grin: I sure love the area where you keep your boat and do your boating. Just about a year ago we took our Whaler over there for a long weekend and had a great time. Here's a link if you want to see what your area looks like to a foreigner....
http://clubsearay.com/showthread.php/75268-A-weekend-in-Seattle-with-a-side-trip-to-Mt-Rainier?highlight=Kirkland
 
This Cessna CJ3 was parked outside their office. I don't know whose 3 rug rats those are. Nice plane:
aDSCN2951_zpsq1k32ajr.jpg


.

I don't know who those kids are either :wink:, but with a plane like that, they're probably the CFO, CEO and CTO of some new tech startup that just did an IPO, so they bought themselves a little present. I think the little guy on the left is telling the pilot they want to go west. Probably headed to the Japan and China to source some hardware.
 
I don't know who those kids are either :wink:, but with a plane like that, they're probably the CFO, CEO and CTO of some new tech startup that just did an IPO, so they bought themselves a little present. I think the little guy on the left is telling the pilot they want to go west. Probably headed to the Japan and China to source some hardware.
:smt001
 
I think the little guy on the left is telling the pilot they want to go west. Probably headed to the Japan and China to source some hardware.
That little guy on the left (the red head) is the youngest of those three of my grand kids. He's a typical red head. He knew we were on the way to a hanger to look at the planes and resented stopping for gramps to be photo'd in front of that jet.

He was probably thinking "What the hell are we doing here on the tarmac when we could be in that hangar looking at all those cool planes."
 

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