From the Helm of Adamant 1 – Blog 22 – Christmas on Adamant 1

 

Dec 6, 2018

Decorating my little tree – there’s even a snowflake over my head.

We are home for Christmas this year. Soon we will be heading back to Adamant 1 for another winter in the Bahamas, but we will celebrate the holidays here with our family first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pat loves nuts at Christmas – forgot the nutcracker

Celebrating here in Canada is very different than Christmas on the boat. It’s not the snow…..that we can do without! It’s not the turkey and all the trimmings….we bring those with us from the US. We have a small tree which I decorate then tie to the door handle of the cup-board so it stays put. Battery operated lights do the trick, but it takes a lot of batteries to get through the holidays! I buy chocolates but I have to be creative where I hide them or Pat will have eaten everything long before the big day. Hiding presents is another interesting dilemma, but somehow we manage it.

Junkanoo floats

A highlight of being in Nassau at Christmas is attending Junkanoo. Right at 12:01 am on December 26th, the whole island gets together with groups from other islands to put on a spectacular parade. Although the origins of the cultural extravaganza can be debated, it is truly a feast for the eyes. There are hundreds of costumes, huge affairs that they wear. Sometimes the bigger ones get help from a couple fellows who push it along. The costumes, music and dancing were worth staying up all night to watch.

We have certainly had our share of laughs at Christmas time. One year Pat wrapped my gifts in paper towels because he didn’t know where the wrapping paper was! Another year I spent an afternoon making those paper snowflakes we learned to make in grade 4. I had them hanging everywhere in the boat and when Pat returned after helping a fellow on another boat, he took one look around and vowed to get me off the boat more! The first year we were down there I got my hair cut the day before Christmas. That’s the day the local women have their hair “done” for the holidays. They are wildly elaborate hairdos and they look fantastic….on them. After she cut my hair my hairdresser asked if she could “do” me. I wasn’t sure what she meant and I think I may have had a bit of a wobble in my voice when I asked for clarification. It may have come out as “What!” She had never worked with soft grey hair and she wanted to fancy up my plain hairdo. Okay, I can let her do that! She proceeded to make me look nice. You’ve seen pictures of me….I’m over 60. Now picture me with waxed pin-curls all around my hairline and spiked hair everywhere else. Everyone in the salon oohed and aahed over my “do”. I thought I looked like a fool! I literally flew back to the marina. Pat took one look at me and hurried me back to the boat before any of our friends saw me. It took days to get the wax washed out!

Our first Christmas we had friends join us for dinner as they were in Nassau too. The next year we were alone, but on Christmas Eve, we met a wonderful couple and spent the day with them. We invited them to share our Christmas turkey dinner and they did. We remain friends to this day. Our third Christmas was spent with Folly and Pisces, friends from home that we were travelling with. We were at Black Point in the Exumas and we paid $20 a person to go to a buffet dinner at one of the restaurants on the island. It is just a tiny place but we crammed 60 cruisers into the room. We could barely move, but it was a fantastic dinner and party, complete with a DJ. It was a wet and very windy night and we got soaked getting back to Adamant. Some of the boats pulled up anchor and felt their way through the reefs and rounded the point to calmer waters. We had faith in our anchor and waited until it was light to move. That is the sort of thing you don’t think about in Canada at Christmas!

a Christmas bell in Nassau

Another fun thing about being in the islands for Christmas is finding a church to go to on Christmas morning. We found a Catholic church in Nassau, but other years we went to a different church just to see another point of view. The service in a Baptist church in Black Point was memorable for many reasons. It was a new experience for us, a revival style of service with a lot of singing and “praise the Lord” every few moments. It was an interesting morning and it gave us a look at a part of their culture we wouldn’t normally see.

Last year we were stuck in Vero Beach waiting for a weather window. We were alone, so we signed up for the cruisers’ potluck lunch. It was very nice to have an outdoor meal with about 50 other cruisers, but it wasn’t a Christmas dinner. We had a turkey in the freezer and I had all the trimmings too, but we didn’t want to make all that for just us. Instead we cooked everything on Valentine’s Day and we ate it with four of our closest friends. THAT was a great dinner!

So Merry Christmas everyone from the crew of Adamant 1. Stay tuned in January as I resume the regular blog including our trip up the ICW in the spring.

Until next time…..

Longtime CY staffer Lynn Lortie and her husband Pat left Midland the summer of 2016 to make their way into the Great Loop and head out on a three year sailing odyssey. Follow their progress right here in CYOB.