Merry Christmas all!  We have seen Christmas Day come and go accompanied by reggae, rap, calypso, pan, gospel and numerous variations on Christmas carols being played in all the churches, restaurants and bars by locals in Santa hats (all these days with flashing red and white LED’s sewn into them of course).

The Howes family converged on Oboe from all directions, Paul (Dad) Norfolk (UK) via Barbados, Val (Mum) and David, number two son, New Jersey via Philadelphia, Tim number one son, Maryland via Atlanta, with lost bags arriving Christmas day via goodness knows where!  Val, with borrowed clothes from a friend on another charter was the last to arrive with son David.  No sooner was she aboard than we dropped the St Vincent mooring and ran away to Bequia for the start of the renowned local Christmas celebrations.  Dinner at the Devil’s Table for the family, then Ryan and I joined them and hundreds of others at Frangipani for good humoured exchanges of “Merry Christmas” with yotties, newly arrived from Europe, old sea dogs with that “Robinson Crusoe” look, families of sea gypsies with sun bleached everything and of course local Bequians dancing up a storm on the makeshift dance floor on the beach.  To the amazing sounds of the local steel band comprising youngsters as small as 11 years old, all dressed up as Santa Claus, I sat and wistfully drifted off into a little world of my own, being an amalgamation of family and friends spread far and wide.

Christmas morning arrived rather quickly after that.  A bleary-eyed, rather disorientated crew surprised themselves at the delivery of a sumptuous breakfast of scrambled egg, smoked salmon, fresh pastries, fresh coffee and bucks fizz and it just kept coming!  Presents were exchanged, with both Ryan and I saying in unison:  “urr... sorry , umm... didn’t get you anything! My round tonight though!”  The day ticked by lazily, lost bags were retrieved from the airport, Nigel magic’ed up a German Stolen from the depths of the freezer and various other sweetmeats were contributed from the lost bag.  So, as is traditional at Christmas, we indulged ourselves.  A Christmas dinner on board of garlic prawns followed by pork tenderloin in a wild mushroom cream sauce topped off the day nicely and all fell quiet to the strains of Bing Crosby’s “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas”.  In no time the horizontal position took over.  A Christmas day to remember for a long time to come.

Nigel