January 19, 2001 -- Cruising Holiday Festivities

We are in Thailand. It is not my first choice of a holiday venue, but since most of our cruising friends would be here...

Our holidays were great - a bit different as usual, but we put as much tradition into them as is possible here. Like, there are no Christmas trees, but plenty of beautiful orchids. I can buy a whole handful for about a dollar. Thai's don't do Christmas, they are Buddhists for the most part. But there is a healthy European tourist industry here, and now is the prime time. So there is a smattering of Christmas apparent around us. And all us yachties are determined to have a good Christmas too. I'll tell you about ours:

We, my friend Sandy and I decided to have Christmas Eve Open House so we could invite lots of people. We had it all aboard SUNFLOWER. Had 22 people on board - great fun! We put up a string of Christmas lights in the staysail area which gave nice lighting for the foredeck. So between a group there, more in the the cockpit, and some down below, it didn't seem crowded at all. Everyone brought a plate of something good to eat - I made my Mother's Christmas cheese, Birit brought her scrumptious Swedish meatballs, Susan produced corn chips and salsa from some long-tucked-away corner!

Christmas Day dinner was held at our friend Rowdy's house. It was sort of a pain to haul all the food from the boats to there, but it worked out great in the long run, as none of our boats would have accommodated 14 for a sit-down dinner. Even convinced Rowdy (his house guest really) that he would have to do the turkey. The only problem - we knew from helping him move house last year that the stove/oven didn't work. In typical Rowdy fashion, he was out Christmas Day buying a gas regulator and hose and getting the stove hooked up so that the turkey could be cooked. It was - by some miracle!!!

Kinda quiet after that. Everyone ready for a rest after Christmas I guess. Some meandered off to other anchorages. Peter and Sandy left the 27th for the Butangs; their dog Bundy doesn't do well with fireworks. Paul and Susan sailed down there also to be with P&S over the New Year. We laid low for a few days just puttering about on the boat.

We had a nice sail - off shore winds in smooth seas - up to Patong Beach on New Year's Eve Day. This place is a major tourist spot and is a real ZOO with jet skis, parasailers, hobie cats, water skiers, etc. All zipping around the anchored yachts! We invited friends from 3 yachts: INVICTUS, HIGHLANDER, and FIDDLER over for a pre-New Year's Eve drink which was fun. Dan and Donna from INVICTUS we had met in Cyprus back in 1989 and had just sailed in that morning!!! What fun! Everyone went ashore after that to join up with other friends and continue with prior commitments.

We met up with Kate and Alan, whom we had met in Guam, on shore, had a beer and went to see one of the Transvestite shows together. Wasn't much to speak about. I think Alan must've mixed up his times and we only caught the end of it. So watched the "go-go" girls with their bars and little to nothing on for a while. One came over and sat on Al's lap -- he'll have to tell you what it was all about!

We scrambled back to the dinghies about 11:30pm and back out to SUNFLOWER where we watched the fireworks by ourselves. These fireworks are COMPLETELY undisciplined, they are bursting all along the shore. Add to that a nearly continual barrage of firecrackers being set off in the streets and you can see why we retreated early! I wasn't drinking at all, yet woke up in the morning with a cracking headache - from the noise I suspect.

I counted 132 boats at anchor in Patong at about 8 am New Year's Day - including 4 that were already leaving. Not like last year when I stopped counting at 150 because it was getting too confusing. Friends Jim and Pat had their 2nd annual New Year's Day lunch aboard their boat. It was a treat as always; about 20 of us partaking. Well, as the "Car Talk" guys would say, we "underutilized another perfectly good..." afternoon - in this case!