An Interesting Christmas

Every Christmas on a boat is different. This year our plans revolved around staying in Black Point so that we could celebrate with other cruisers at Lorraine’s Cafe. Then it almost didn’t happen. A line of squalls came through last night and just sat over our area. Usually squalls pass through quickly but each one of these lasted for hours at a time. The squalls brought a lot of wind so we wanted to wait for a break in the squalls before we went ashore. We finally just gave up waiting, put our foul weather gear on and headed slowly to shore. We put the dinghy on the beach instead of risking the dock. By the time we got to Lorraine’s, two hours late, everyone had already eaten. We did squeeze in at a table with four other cruisers and they happened to be very nice and welcoming. Lorraine put some Junkanoo music on, put on a costume and invited others to join her in a type of conga line around the restaurant. Junkanoo is a street parade with music, costumes and dance that occurs on Boxing Day (December 26) and New Years across the Bahamas. We have actually never seen a live Junkanoo so we really enjoyed this one. Lorraine also had other games including a hilarious one involving a donuts. It is too complicated to explain. 

After dinner we walked with some other cruisers down to Emerald Sunset View for drinks but didn’t stay long. The groups that were there were pretty tight-knit so it didn’t feel like we were welcome. 

Yesterday we started our day with laundry. We made a point of arriving as soon as the laundromat opened thinking it was going to get crowded. Several more boats had arrived in the harbor since we arrived. We needn’t have worried, no one else came in to do laundry while we were there. Ida was busy with about 1000 other things but was finally free to cut our hair by the time our laundry was finished. We saw Laurie and Frances from Glory Days in town and took the opportunity to ask them for dinner. I had been meaning to reciprocate since they had us over for fillet mignon last Christmas Eve. My dinner want nearly as fancy but we had a good time catching up. 

Johnny and Doris on ‘Bout Time have Christmas lights all over their boat and it is really beautiful. It is hard to get a good photo at night so this one doesn’t do it justice.