I’ve known this guy, Chris Partridge,  for a number of years now. Not in the “let’s go hang out and grab a couple of beers” way of knowing a friend with whom you share a passion. More like a Cyber-Friend who lives in England with whom I’ve shared many interesting discussions over the years on various Yahoo Groups. That kind of friend.

I would just love to have the opportunity and the resources to get over to Europe again and truly spend some time with all of my English boating buddies.

For the time being, I’m content to regularly read Chris’ blog on Rowing for Pleasure.  http://rowingforpleasure.blogspot.com/

If you haven’t already visited this very interesting weblog, there’s no time like the present to get your act together and punch-up that link just above and let yourself go.

The site is filled with very intriguing articles and photos about one of the basic experiences of the boating world. There’s stuff like this one, Expedition Rowing, where a young couple from Canada rowed and rode their way from Scotland to Syria on a personal trip of family heritage discovery.

Aww, come on… how many of you would just love to shove off one of these days on a trip something very much like this? OK, so it is very ambitious what they did and most of us would be much better suited to knocking out a much more modest enterprise, but think of the sites, the sounds and the aromas you’d encounter as you wound your way down the Rhine River, the Danube, the Black Sea and a part of the Mediterranean Sea?