A Kuna Christmas and Boxing Day

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Talking to our families, it seemed cold in many parts of the US - so we hope you stayed warm with family and friends. Our Christmas was spent with about 25 boats in the "swimming pool" area. It was a warm and sunny day with a nice breeze to keep things comfortable. A potluck on one of the islands was attended by about 60 people and this included a fun gift exchange with some crazy gifts, from bazooka style water pistols to inflatable parrots. The food was tasty including everything from smoked salmon, chicken curry and turkey to lentil salads and quiche. The dessert table was filled with pineapple upside down cake, a yummy pecan pie and cakes and cookies galore. It was a fun event with people from many countries. Lots of Santa hats and festive outfits adorned the cruisers and that evening the boats seemed particularly pretty with their Christmas lights and decorations.

Christmas night brought in a few squalls and one catamaran that had anchored a bit close to us got mighty close when the wind changed directions. But they seemed to be able to sleep through it all - though we were up at 0400 and stayed up on anchor watch the rest of the morning. We couldn't wake the other boat even with calls on the radio (several channels), yelling at the boat and even spotlighting their boat with our mighty spotlight. The wind, rain and our attempts didn't work to wake up the crew who seemed oblivious to the situation. Oh well! In the morning when they finally got up and saw how close we were they let out more chain and went back below decks.

The fleet of cruising boats is international - so there were "Boxing Day" greetings also sent out for December 26th to celebrate the day after Christmas. This is a tradition in the British (and former British) commonwealths (so all the Brits, Kiwis, Canadians, Aussies, South Africans, Irish and others celebrated).

Today, Michael completed a few big projects. Stealing an idea we saw the other night on Calypso, a South African boat, he made some good window "sticks" to keep our hatches open. He also installed a fan to keep the refrigerator compressor cooler. This last project was accompanied by some not so pleasant language, a few more bruises on his head and some contortionist moves. But it got done. Three cheers for Hawk!

So to all - Happy Boxing Day!

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