Tis The Season~

Amazing how quickly the time passes. Another Christmas and holiday season is upon us and we are so stoked. We here on Vacilando don’t have the space for a tree so we decorate our mast every year. It’s become our tradition and new friends as well as old have given us ornaments along the way that we’ve added to the mast and now she looks like a full fledged Christmas tree! Mast. Christmas Mast!

To be honest… Melody and I have never done the “big” Christmas thing so we’ve never been caught sleeping in Walmart’s parking lot waiting for the Black Friday specials. Even when we lived in our land house, we exchanged a few small meaningful gifts and that’s about it. If we were traveling to see family, we’d usually get them gifts and forego gifts for each other as we’ve always kinda felt like we didn’t really need anything other than what we had.

Now with our mast tree, we’ve purchased very small stockings for each of us and one for Jet. If it can fit in the stocking, then you can’t give it. Melody never seems to follow the rules and last year gave me the most awesome KitchenAid hand mixer and food processor. No… it didn’t fit in my stocking.

Anyway – this summer was an incredible one spent on the Chesapeake Bay with friends at Spring Cove Marina and I helped deliver a friend’s boat to the BVI’s. The delivery to Tortola and our own trip down the ICW were both taxing and incredible. We’ve never dealt with 26 degrees in the boat, ice on deck and fog for days at a time.

We landed in our temporary home in Florida on the eve of Thanksgiving and were extremely thankful to say the least. Fish tacos and football on Thanksgiving was yet another first for us and now as the Holiday Season gets into full swing this week and next, we reflect on all the amazing gifts we have. We’ve made new friends this year to add to the old friends we continue to treasure on a daily basis. Rarely does a day pass when we don’t mention Rock Hall, Solomons, Ft. Lauderdale, Hendricks Isle and all the in-betweens.

We send texts when we think about you and we get texts shortly after we’ve mentioned your names… I promise… and we love every minute of it. This week, some of those new friends surprised us on the dock here and spent a couple days traipsing around with us and we couldn’t have been happier. Nate and Don… you were a pleasure and… a reminder of what this time of year is all about. Family and friends make it all for us. We are gearing up for big things in 2015 and not concentrating on what we didn’t get done.

I know I speak for Melody when I say, Thank You! From the bottom of our hearts, we really dig getting to correspond with you, sit and share a beer, rum, dinner or just the interest in sailing and dreaming. s/v Magnolia, Where the Coconuts Grow, Turf To Surf, Summer Time Rolls, Dos Libras, Windtraveler, MJ Sailing, Lasata, Lahowind (and so many more that I know I’m leaving out and I’m sorry!) we love you guys! Thanks for inspiring us every day and for posting your debacles, triumphs, fears and dreams. It’s an awesome world that we live in and we can’t wait to see what happens next!

The crew here at s/v Vacilando wanna wish everyone much love and joy this season. Joy is a big word for me and the past several years have been challenging for many – financially, spiritually and physically. We wish you peace. And we wish you safe travel.

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.