Boxing Day 2010

I hope you all had a great Christmas Day. This is the placid scene that I woke up to at sunrise yesterday. It reminds me of a song that we used to sing as kids called "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth." Instead the lyrics I was singing were, "all I want for Christmas is a calm, warm day." Santa delivered!

What a perfect start to a busy but fun day.

Today however, the weather did an 'about face' and it has been blowing 25-35 m.p.h. with several showers during the passing of our latest cold front. The rain was quite welcome though, since it gave the boat a nice rinse off.

This, the day after Christmas, is Boxing Day in both The Bahamas and England. It is a Hope Town Sailing Club tradition to have a cruising sailboat race on this holiday. During the past few years New Horizon has been the race committee boat, and this works out well since we are also on the race committee itself. Unfortunately today the wind gods did not cooperate, so we had to postpone the race for a few days. Now we see that the prediction is for flat calm wind on the day we rescheduled the race for. Too much wind or not enough wind? It's just the way the fickle winter weather is in the Bahamas.

We're just glad we are not on a sailboat right now, and not just because of the race. The masts on the sailboats give them a bit more windage and especially the lighter boats are really leaning over and whipping around on their moorings in our heavy winds. We even feel a bit dizzy with the boat moving around so much, almost like a slight case of vertigo. It does make me feel better to look at the Christmas morning picture though, knowing that the rough conditions are temporary. In fact the picture is now my computer's desktop background as a reminder of how calm the harbor can be.

Click here for more info on Boxing Day and last year's race.