Twas The Night Before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the boat not a creature was bleating, not even a goat...

 (Best Christmas tree in the world)

Ahhh Christmas, the time of year when everyone eats 14 times their body weight in deliciously delectable food... When it's perfectly acceptable and even encouraged to hug and lick unsuspecting strangers.... The time of year when you gather to bustow random ridiculous gifts on family and friends...it's a great time if year... And what better place to be than in the Caribbean??

On Christmas Eve, while the rest of the world was waiting for Santa, we got whole lot more than we bargained for!! 

First it started to drizzle and then it began to pour and then people stared chasing their beds down the road as they floated out of their houses... 

Theres no safer place to be than on a boat (assuming its a good boat) when the floods come... By midnight our inflatable dingy was a swimming pool and there was still no sign of relief!

While we sat safe and dry celebrating a Polish Christmas, islanders fraught for their lives and by morning over 30 people were dead...

This year I was showered with gifts and an awesome time with my adopted family... I never got the drinking buddy I asked for for Christmas (and I'm still waiting for Santa to deliver on the wish list in a bottle I floated him last year) but man am I lucky in life!!!

It doesn't matter if you didn't get anything for Christmas this year, you got life, make the most of it!!!

Beary Christmas everyone

If you have a Moment

Life takes you down some crazy paths... 

One moment you're at work merrily swinging from the trees (or whatever it is you do) and then, in a spur of the moment decision, you're merrily sailing along across the atlantic...

before you know it your boat's boarded by pirates who steal everything including your navigation equipment, tampons, and collection of googly eyes- leaving  you feeling like every fishing boat in a 2000 mile radius is out to get you... Leaving you stripped of your freedom and security...leaving you to navigate by sight, compass and Internet downloads... 

One day you're suddenly 29 and celebrating life at a 15 degree slant in the middle of the ocean surrounded by dolphins and crashing waves and shooting stars and endless watery horizons...

And then suddenly you're approaching your destination and fretting sleepless nights about what happens next... 

The next thing you know, in a random twist of fate, your old boat's pulled in and purchased you as crew for the price of a bag of cookies and some soy milk (apparently I don't come cheap)...

(Nereid, my Atlantic crossing steed)

(Fiddler, my Indian Ocean crosser and new home...)

(The old crew)

(The new crew)

One Moment you're pouring all your energy into sailing north as quickly as possible, the next you're leisurely sailing south with time to spare to stop and smell the flowers and lick the locals and snorkel and dive... 

One moment passes so quickly... Its hardly worth worrying or over-planning or living mediocritly or making your bed too well... 

One moment you're born, next thing it's 2014 ...and then in a flash of life it's all over...make sure you make the most of every moment...

...sorry for wasting a moment of your time by letting you read this...:)... Now go and enjoy life and don't waste any more!!!