Day 59, Year 5: Warmest Holiday Wishes from Windbird
Date: Thursday, December 24, 2009
Weather: Partly Sunny, Becoming Overcase; SW Winds 10
Location: Nai Harn Bay, Phuket Island, Thailand
It might not be warm where you are, but we can honestly send you the warmest of wishes at this glorious time of year. It is always in the 80’s here in southern Thailand at this time of year and this afternoon, I have been baking stuffing, a pecan pie, and a pumpkin pie for Christmas Day. The oven is tiny, so each thing had to be baked one at a time. That has raised the inside temperature to almost 95 degrees F. So truly, warmest wishes from Windbird.
Whether you are family, land-based friend, or fellow cruiser, we will be thinking of all of you during the holidays. Every year of our voyage, my hope for the new year is that I will have more time to communicate with each of you more often. I’m really hoping to send out monthly letters from Windbird and the next one will be due on New Year’s Day. So until then, enjoy where ever you are and whomever you are with. We are missing family terribly right now. It is a hard time of year to be so far away. But we have done everything we can to be able to connect with them via Skype with video on Christmas Day. The only thing that could alter our great plan is the fact that almost everyone else in the world will be trying to do the same time, and we might not get through. If that happens, we’ll just have to be satisfied with the day after Christmas.
We are celebrating Christmas Eve with cruisers from around the world. We will meet on shore and be treated to be scrumptious buffet at a little resort that welcomes cruisers this way every year. But it is not really the food that we are seeking, it is the camaraderie of fellow sailors, all far away from home. Tomorrow we will have dinner with our closest friends from the past year of sailing, Tina and Robert of Shirena and Donna and Gerry of Scot Free II. Scot Free just arrived and they are going to shore to the buffet with us.
We had two great Skype calls today, one with our friends Alan and Helaine in Concord, NH, and another with Jean and Ken of Renaissance 2000 in Richards Bay. It was so great to talk to them. Our son Justin, Jo, and Ziggy should have arrived in England today and our daughter Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah are at the farm in Maine. We have family in North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, West Virginia, and Florida. We have good friends in Australia, in Vanuatu, in Fiji, in Malaysia, here in Thailand and all over the US. We are all spread out all over the world. So joy to the world!
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| 091224 Thailand–Christmas Eve on Jungle Beach |
