Albert Park Yachting and Angling Club, Beaconsfield Parade, Albert Park. Phone: 9690 5530

Blogging works best with a genuine spirit of giving and sharing – advice, support and more.

But there is a fine line for an ambitious blogger between pro bono and “work” that should come with some sort of pay packet.

In the case of my former Sunday Herald Sun colleague Veronica, I’m happy to make the drive to Brighton to spend a couple of hours addressing with her all sorts of philosophical, tactical and technical blog-related issues.

Especially as she’s paying for lunch.

Her blog, Australian Cruising News, has been up and running for a while, but she is only just now getting round to making it really sing.

And I’m delighted to learn she is determined to make her site less a soft mouthpiece for the industry and more the sort of feisty, lively blog I know she’s capable of producing.

Going the non-flogger route, she may ruffle a few feathers along the way but in the longer term it’ll stand her in good stead in terms of individual integrity and respect AND, somewhat perversely, eventually garner the same of respect from the industry!

But after two-plus hours of widgets, links, tags, Facebook pages, themes and a whole lot more, we are wrung out and glazed of eye.

Given that I am planning to run a blogging course at a western suburbs community centre in the not too distant future, Veronica has done me a real service, as this has been an excellent learning experience.

The people I will teaching will be coming from way behind where Veronica is, so where initially I wondered how I was going to fill six or eight two-hour classes, now I know it will be nowhere near enough.

And I learn that patience is most certainly a teaching virtue and that ultimately people must for themselves.

I can see me issuing lots of homework assignments!

After all that, she and I are hungry – and so is her hubby, Neil.

So we head off to the Albert Park Yachting And Angling Club, of which Veronica is a member.

The club may be “members only” but has a nice, relaxed feel.

I feel more at home and ease than I suspect I’d feel in other “members only” establishments scattered around the bay and in the CBD!

I’m told the club’s annual meeting was the previous night, to which my friends attribute the thinner-than-usual lunchtime crowd.

Likewise, they tell me the blackboard menu is less extensive than usual.

But we make do and eat well of meals that come across as good, solid pub-style tucker and that are priced accordingly.

We share a main-serve plate of panko squid rings ($19).

Good they are, too, and the real deal, as opposed to surimi “rings”.

They’re ungreasy and fresh, with the batter sticking on fine.

Veronica is pleased with her lemon pepper chicken salad with a yogurt dressing.

The chook piece I try is a little on the dry side, but she tells me the well-dressed salad does the lubrication job.

Neil has the porterhouse steak ($21). I’m told he always does, in this case complementing the red–wine sauce with a dollop of good, old-fashioned sauce of the tomato variety.

I try the grilled salmon with a potato and greens “kasoundi salad” ($22).

The fish is beautifully cooked, tender and delicious.

The salad, too, is fine, with heaps of beans and asparagus.

The kasundi element is restricted to a hefty smear of the chutney across the top of my fish portion.

Its tastes sort-of OK, bit I wish it wasn’t there – it’s a bit weird.

Blogging aside, it’s great to catch up with an old work mate.

I wonder if ears have been burning as we’ve discussed, in frank and fearless fashion, times past and those who populated them?