Wild West Winnie Loop

A long land voyage.

In these uncertain times (ugh) we opted not to fly and rent a car to visit our fresh niece Winifred. We figured it was only fair to visit Tay’s family as well, in case we love Mexico enough to move there, we can say a proper goodbye to both families. But we needed a stopover halfway to Denver. I have friends in Phoenix so it was all coming together. Plus our truck is stored in Hannah & Joe’s driveway in Vancouver WA, so we could get that. It’ll be nice to have our own car when we wind down the voyage. We also scored a stopover in San Fran for the home stretch. The plan was set for our loop, and as is our custom, got delayed for weather. Rental cars aren’t guaranteed to be 4wd, and would definitely have San Diego style tires which would be lacking in the great white North.

· Leg 1. San Diego to Phoenix. 6 hrs & 360 miles. An easy first day along the Mexico border, brief pit stop rolling in the sand dunes, and warmly greeted by some golf, a sunset, and wonderful dinner & conversation with the Sweitzers.

· Leg 2. Phoenix to Loveland. 14 hrs & 870 miles. America is stunning part 1. Sedona, Flagstaff, Moab, Colorado canyons & our first taste of snowy roads in a year. Greeted by -15 degree weather, cold Busch lights, and a warm Buschy welcome. We spent 3 days with the Buschys. Threw axes for Valentine’s day and had a blast.

· Leg 3. Loveland to Bozeman. 10 hrs & 600 miles. A cold Wyoming day and a heated game of horse-horse (Tay the victor). Greeted by the Holidays with a fire, feast, and A NIECE!!! We spent 4 days in Bozeman seeing old friends, fawning over Lil’ Win’ and a surprise visit from Troy, who quit his job in DC to fly in and see us for a day! Talk about dedication & poetic license. (He actually came to ski and had already planned on quitting but it all worked out so we overlapped a day).

· Leg 4. Bozeman to Vancouver. 13 hrs & 760 miles. The drive from Bozeman to Spokane is becoming like a commute to us, but the new territory on the South route to Portland is stunning in the winter. The Columbia River gorge is deep, green, and overwhelming. We were welcomed in by Joe and caught up about old boat adventures and new. We saw our ole pal Max and got introduced to Joe’s ½ jeep. He cut the back half off…you can ask him why but we didn’t get a clear answer.

We didn’t get any pictures of the green part, but its green!

o Now that we have Tay’s truck but need to deliver the renal back to SD, we’re in 2 cars, but luckily have a good pair of walkee-talkees.

· Leg 5. Vancouver WA, to San Francisco. 14 hrs & 810 miles. There’s a fine line between trusting google maps, and being too independent. We wanted to see the Redwoods and drive the coast road. A mudslide ruined the coast road but google maps suggested a quick hour detour around the slide. Once in Redwood National Park, the rangers informed us the ‘detour’ was more of a game trail and had to be closed due to the number of google-trusting-tourists’ getting stuck. We backtracked a hundred miles north to I-5 and resumed. Coming into SF over the bay bridge at night has to be one of the most stunning “Welcome” to a city out there. The pizza at Max & Matt’s was a close second.

· Leg 6. San Francisco to San Diego. 9 hrs & 600 miles. This leg also could’ve been shorter but we wanted to see sections of the coast we missed, and having already listened to 2 Steinbeck audiobooks on this trip, we wanted to detour through Salinas & King City, and take a few back roads. Southern California is another amazing part of the country. This time of year its green rolling hills, and striking ocean views which we missed on the foggy sail down. We pulled into San Diego, tuckered out, but pumped to pick up Eunice from her second home.

Eunice loves looking out windows…and was medium about seeing us again.

Total Trip Sats:

4139 Miles.

67 hours

9 States

3 Audio Books:

The Log, from the Sea of Cortez (We’re so excited for Baja)
Travels With Charley (We’re already planning a land-based version of our trip)
Two Years Before The Mast. (Oh man, we have it easy onboard)

3 cases of LaCroix

3 stops for food/coffee (shocking I know, but we prepared an obscene amount of veggies, dips, bags of popcorn, and sliced cheeses before we left San Diego, plus we didn’t want to catch the ol’ ‘rona)

Back to the boat…and some navy seal training on our dock. Stay tuned.

February 26, 2021February 26, 2021

Scootie on Scooter

Rikka AKA Scooter AKA the sea-fearingest-sailor

This last week we took a long land-voyage and had one of the busiest 2-week stretches in a while, and I was not able to get an email update out. My sincerest apologies.

Before our great western loop, my sister Rikka flew into San Diego for a weekend of sailing and merriment. She was a more enthused sailor than most guests and I suspect it had something to do with her not trusting her dumb little brother could pull off the whole sailing thing. She was convinced we’d die off the coast of Oregon so she wanted us to prove that we knew what we were doing. We spent her first day in town cruising up and down the San Diego bay seeing the sights and ships. After that, she kindly insisted we do another day sailing outside of the bay to see the open pacific and some better wind and swell.

We spent super bowl Sunday with Chuck and Kitsy and as always at their house ate like kings.

We also made two attempts at the Cabrillo monument national park hoping for the combination of low tide, and low popularity so we could experience the tide pools. This was a highlight. We spent hours wandering the slippery rocks looking at all manner of sea creatures: Rainbow Sea Stars, Sea hares, fish, hermit crabs, snails, non-rainbow starfish, and dozens of un-identifiable-brightly-colored-oddly-shaped aliens.

We crammed in a beach day, long dinghy ride, found an ancestor’s grave at the Point Loma Military Cemetery, a fish taco night, and even some movies. I’d like to think we’re getting more efficient at hosting guests and stacking the days with festive, sea-related activities. We also scored the best oranges I’ve ever tasted willy nilly in a golf cart on the side of the road.

This visit nearly rounds out the last of our immediate family members to see & sail on scooter. Maria & Schmitz are the remaining outliers but they have a great excuse, hence the reason for our Wild-West-Winnie-(w)Road-Trip. Tales from the long drive coming soon. Aka tomorrow.

February 26, 2021February 26, 2021

Scooter’s Galley Volume 5

Canned Fish

I think canned fish gets a bad rap. I guess all canned meat gets met with some trepidation but I’m pro canned meat. (except Vienna sausages…ew).

Canned chicken is good on the boat. It lasts forever and doesn’t need to be refrigerated, plus in a stir fry it’s ok. Canned corned beef hash is an excellent treat on a Saturday morning. And although canned tuna can be lame and is probably packed with dolphin meat, the other canned fishes are AWESOME. So here’s my review of the canned fish section at your local grocery store.

My canned fish interest started when I read “The Voyage of the Cormorant”. A guy sails solo down the Baja, surfing and eating canned sardines along the way. It is a great story and helped me process our failure last season. For our boat journey, it seemed fitting to always have a bunch of canned fish on board. During project days, we almost always hoover some saltines & sardines for lunch. On Fridays in Seattle, we did ‘Tinis&Dines’ (sardines & martinis).

Eunice loves canned fish, but luckily she won’t eat off our plates. She requires her own portion as well as explicit permission to eat it.

We got a gift of some canned fish from our van life friends, Wayne & Katrina. They gave us a great variety of canned fishes that arent always available at our local Kroger. We tried a few that were not pictured above. But here’s what you need to know before your next canned fish purchase:

Tuna. Canned/bagged tuna all tastes the same. If you’re not gonna eat it mashed up with mayo, canned is better cause it retains some flakes, but the 79 cent cans on the bottom shelf aren’t great, spring for name brand.

In the bags, it’s all pretty lame. Some of the flavored ones are ok, but none are really that good. Costco sells a mercury-free yellowfin in a pouch. This was the best tuna option in my opinion.

Sardines. No need to splurge here. They’re pretty much all the same, but they’re all good. Cheaper brands usually have smaller fish. The ones packed in Mustard are gross. The hot sauce packed sardines are good, but packed in olive oil is best. Add your own hot sauce.

Mackerel: This is the best-canned fish. Slightly larger fish than the sardines, but way more flavor and structure. Every brand of Mackerel we tried was good. World Market has some colorful cans in bright paper wrapping that were the best. It is firm, oily, and is really tasty.

Anchovies: These aren’t really an ‘eat-for-lunch-on-a-cracker’ type fish. But everyone needs a few of these cans in their pantry. Next time you’re cooking something that needs a little extra depth, mush up a couple anchovies into it. They can add great salty umami to pasta sauces, lentil soups, or pizza (assuming you own a full-sized oven). I do most of the cooking in our family, but Taylor is forever the keeper of the secret family caesar dressing recipe, and it requires a few anchovies. It’s BOMB!

Salmon: Salmon shouldn’t be canned. It’s probably more sustainable than tuna, and I’m sure its price tag is justified some way, but canned salmon isn’t great. However, I fully intend to keep exploring canned salmon because I made salmon cakes last month that were heavenly, but the ingredients (With fresh salmon) are out of scooter’s price range.

Trout: Actually really good. Maybe because it was the only smoked fish we had, but it was excellent. You could proudly serve canned trout on a charcuterie board (although maybe mush it up with some cream cheese so it doesn’t look so weird).

I get that this one doesn’t present great, but it is really delicious.

In Summary:

The Good:

Canned meats in general (with some key exceptions).
Mackerel, king of the canned fish.
Sardines, and Anchovies should be staples of the pantry, at sea, or on land.

The Bad:

Canned salmon isn’t flavorful.
Canned tiny shrimp are horrible and don’t belong on a $24 salad. (looking at you Tide’s Tavern in Gig Harbor)
People who categorically dismiss canned fish have weak bloodlines and history will not be kind to you.

Editors note: SPAM (king of the canned meats) has been on the grocery list for some time. Once I convince Taylor of its redeeming qualities will make an appearance in Scooter’s Galley.

February 26, 2021February 26, 2021

Wind Pinned

Throwback Time!

Frankly, this week was a little underwhelming. I even postponed the newsletter a couple of days hoping something exciting would happen. Here’s a brief recap:

Gale force winds kept us from leaving the San Diego Yacht Club as planned. We provisioned to leave the docks for a few weeks, but the wind angered the seas, and our Catalina plan was put back on hold.

A lot of angry water between us and Catalina

The coast guard paperwork may be done soon, and with a special visitor planned (Aunt Scootie), we looked to hunker down in San Diego a while longer. It took a few days on the phone with every marina in town but we finally lucked out and found a slip. They were very gracious and allowed us a short term liveaboard contract.

Scooter’s first-ever liveaboard approved slip!

We went to a birthday party! Shoutout to S/V Space Cowboy for inviting us and making us feel like we have local friends. We had a bunch of fun dinners with Chuck & Kitsy. I played golf with Dave, and Taylor hung out with our friends, Max & Matt Jones who were visiting from SF. Despite being pinned down, we had a ton of fun.

Anyway, in lieu of a more fascinating update, here’s a throwback tale to another pinned-down-by-wind story.

Last summer, post-decision not to go South, we spent some time touring the San Juan Islands. This was Tay and my first time cruising just the two of us after Hannah and Joe returned to land.

We bit off more than we could chew one day. Passing between two narrow islands with a significant current rushing between them, we had full sails up, a fishing rod in the water, and while Taylor helmed I had an entire disassembled outboard sprawled about the cockpit. We hooked a fish, and chaos ensued. We traded off reeling and steering and trying to wrangle the sails, while every nut and bolt from the outboard tried to get lost.

Scooter, the previous night in the stunning San Juans

It was a good marriage exercise while we yelled at each other trying to survive. The boat got close to the rocks on shore then close to the passing ferry, then close to the various sailboats, then back to the shore. Tay landed the whopper of a Salmon, and a flopping fish in the spare motor parts added another tier to our chaos cake.

We got the sails down, bonked the fish, stashed it in the cooler, and got the outboard cleaned up. We sailed into Friday Harbor as we calmed down and apologized to each other. As we rolled in, the sky on one side was violently dark while the other was clear blue. We got into a slip right as the wall hit. In the days pre-dodger, we had to set up a tarp over the cockpit.

The storm lasted 4 days which took a big hit out of our budget, Friday Harbor was one of the most expensive marinas at the time. But we were content. We watched all 5 Pirates of the Caribbean movies, ate ungodly amounts of salmon, and sat in the rain.

Knock on wood we get pinned down in places this amazing from here on out.

February 26, 2021February 26, 2021

Scooter’s Galley Volume 4

What to expect on a visit to Scooter.

Scooter has provided an awesome platform for friends and family to visit, and vacation safely. It’s also easier to convince people to visit a yacht in sunny California than an apartment in Cincinnati, so I’m happy.

With our visitors, we sometimes teeter on the edge of spending too much time eating and thinking about food (assuming that’s even possible). So here’s a weekend menu from a traditional visit.

Arrive Friday to a traditional sit-down dinner. An introduction to the boat, a cocktail to relieve travel stress, and something rich. Chicken picatta, pork tenderloin in a demi-glace, or maybe a steak dinner.

Saturday morning we generally have a classic breakfast; eggs, bacon, and home fried potatoes crisped in duck fat. We have yet to take pictures of that meal though, so our reader will have to use their imagination. It’s slow, and lets us wake up our guests with the smell of bacon.

Lunch Saturday is our only meal, on average, we eat out. In-n-out burger, or some authentic tacos from our favorite hole-in-the-wall. This works cause Saturday tends to be explore, hike, beach day, or something else out and about.

Saturday dinner often follows the dinghy ride, so we cook something that I can make on auto pilot. Dinghy rides are magical because they’re so fun, we accidentally usually drink too much and stay out on the water past a normal dinner time. So my auto-pilot meals are fish tacos or indian curry.

Sunday mornings we’ve made a habit of sailing. So I’m at the helm and Taylor takes on breakfast. She’s mastered the art of pancakes from scratch, which is extra impressive because most of the time we’re missing most of the ingredients. No milk is fixed by water and heavy cream, no eggs apparently can be replaced with oil but the fluff of the whites is recreated by baking soda and vinegar, but we never have white vinegar so instead apple cider vinegar has to work. Every time, no matter the substitutions, the pancakes turn out delicious. since we may have done Indian the night before, the first round of pancakes are always yellow, pulling a little turmeric out of the pan (yes, we wash our dishes).

They get rounder over time.

Sunday lunch is the classic Char-scooter-ie board. The piest-de-resistance of the visit, since we’re out on the water, sails up, Pirates of the Caribean music playing in the background.

Sunday night we make sushi! Sushi lets the visitor participate and it’s hard to screw up. We have our little collection of condiments and toppings, and have access to great fresh fish at the local fishmongers.

Then the guests leave and Tay and I go back to our weekday meals. Oatmeal, Canned fish, ramen, and lentils!

February 26, 2021

Floors & Logistics

The joy of improving small spaces

If you live in a 96 square foot house, it’s pretty easy to tackle home improvement projects. A home improvement project is on the level of fixing up a bathroom. It’s pretty easy to care about every square inch.

On the flip side, we don’t have the luxury of avoiding a portion of the house for a few days, or closing the door on our bathroom sized house.

So I decided, in our boredom, that we should improve our little house for resale value. our floors were old and absorbed water. *see the at-sea adventure they were coated in a few inches of water and constantly subject to wet residents*.

We learned boat floors are ideally a brilliant white holly pinstripe on a teak background. Our floors were just a bunch of brown. Home Depot doesn’t sell marine varnish, but luckily the man at the paint section pointed us toward a marine supply store near the boat and gave us his business name for a discount. We popped into the marine store and got a wealth of info from the ‘varnish’ guy, as well as a 40% discount on our supplies. Thanks Walt.

First step is a deep clean with soap and water, followed by a hard scrub with oxalic acid. When that dried I attacked the floors with Chuck’s sander, which meant moving anything that can collect dust out of the boat. We had a pile of cushions and clothes outside the boat while the sander screamed away.

Despite our efforts, everything was covered in sawdust.

The logistical challenge that we struggled to overcome was varnishing the floors while Eunice and Taylor roamed about the house. We decided that at midnight, the girls would go to bed, and I’d lay down a coat. I’d paint myself back into the corner of the bedroom and lock us all in, and hopefully, by morning, the floors would be dry enough to walk on.

I put down 3 coats, and each day the floors were tackier and tackier when we woke up, but they looked good.

The third coat took 72 hours to cure. The floors desperately need a fourth and fifth coat, but at 3 days a pop, we’re going to take what we can get for now. Its hard to schedule not walking on them 3 days at a time. They’re looking a lot better but it might be a while before I can post a true ‘after’ picture.

At the end of the flooring project, we intended to sail north for Catalina but the weather had other plans. A storm rolled down the coast pumping 40+ knot winds. Luckily Chuck convinced the yacht club to allow us to stay a few more days while the weather subsided.

40-knot winds and 20-foot seas don’t capture well via selfie

In our delay, we had some other highlights (in no particular order of significance):

We invited Bob Goff to dinner. He declined via email but we had a blast with Chuck and Kitsy
Taylor started a dog portrait business and it’s booming. Get in early before ‘Taylor Holiday Dog Paintings’ get famous.
I fixed our manual water pump!
Taylor diagnosed me as a 9 on the enneagram.
We finished all of the marvel films…(they felt like homework by the end).
Tay’s truck stored in Washington got overrun by mold.
My sister had a baby! Little niece Winifred Jane joined the family!

January 22, 2021

Fire Extinguisher Testing

We almost burned down the boat this week

Does a boat burn down…or up…?

Either way, Scooter is fine, don’t worry. Also, if you’re only invested in these emails for pictures you’re in for a bummer week (but also don’t feel bad, the text is usually just to space out our photo-journal).

Let’s rewind. We have an alcohol stove that burns denatured alcohol. It’s awesome. Simple, cheap and it burns hot. Denatured alcohol is a cleaner used in painting applications like mineral spirits, but when it’s used, it just evaporates. So it’s a pretty bad pollutant when used as a cleaner.

Anyway, California banned its sale unless the business applies for a special recreational use permit and not very many stores have done that. People, however, still want it so the stores that can get it are always sold out/back-ordered. When each of our parents visited they schlepped 3 gallons from Montana/Colorado to supply us.

Despite the inconvenience, shoutout to California for lots of good environmental protections, like saving whales.

Now that we’re stuck in California we burned through our stores. So we called around to a few dozen businesses and finally found one who could sell the stuff. But it was 75 miles North.

In the meantime, Heet (like the fuel treatment from Oreilly’s) works as a substitute. So we filled the stove and continued as normal. Apparently, however, Heet burns a little yellower than denatured alcohol.

Taylor and I drove up, and made a day of it. Beach walks, skateboarding, wandering around malls WAY out of our price range, and discovering the PCH is not a continuous road.

Anyway, we got 6 gallons special ordered for us and got them back to the boat. Hopefully that’ll last us till we get to Mexico.

This week we received some sad news. Tay’s great uncle, and avid SailScooter reader Larry, passed away this week due to Covid. Prayers are welcome for Larry’s family, and we’re hoping the ‘vid is a thing of history soon. I wanted to cheer Tay up so I decided to attempt a little comfort food for dinner. I made homemade french fries and chicken tenders. They turned out great despite the limited resources of deep frying things on a boat.

This week we went fishing with Dave. We hopped in the dinghy before dawn and got to it. Tay caught one good one, I got skunked, and Dave proved that luck isn’t relevant cause he caught 8 or 10. We kept one, and were eager to eat our catch.

So I’m getting ready for a deep-fried fish and chips dinner. The stove was burning a little yellow last we used it, which normally is a sign of low alcohol, so I assumed it was nearly empty. I filled both burners the normal amount to go from nearly empty to full, and might have gone a little heavy hoping to have extra heat and ample cook time for the hot oil. Plus we had tons of stove alcohol so why not.

We’ve got fresh fish, a system of frying things, ample stove alcohol, and a great night planned.

Turns out, the stove was full when I started pouring. So we had a few cups of highly flammable ethanol/methanol mix sloshing around the stove interior.

When I lit it, it seemed normal because only the vapor burns and a little splashed alcohol normally burns off after a re-fill.

But the flames didn’t go down, or retreat to the burner hole. Instead, they grew and grew and grew.

Another fun detail is the fuel, when burned correctly is odorless and doesn’t leave any spot. When burned incorrectly, like just a puddle on fire, it turns into a pretty toxic gas.

So here we are. Eyes burning and watering, 3 foot flames lapping the walls and ceiling of the galley, Taylor and Eunice evacuating and me dumbfounded (and coughing) wondering what was happening. The overfilled, heat burning yellow thing didn’t occur to me immediately.

Tay. The rockstar. Hands me the fire extinguisher and a scuba mask as she bolts out of the boat with the cat to breathe.

I slap the mask on. Hold my breath and make a few feeble attempts to quell the fire.

The fire extinguisher worked instantly. It also blanketed the boat in yellow dust.

It was a good opportunity to deep clean that corner of the boat. There was still a lot of alcohol sloshing around the stove and to my chagrin, there was still at least a cup under the stove in the storage locker. Thankfully, fluids fall down and flames go up. Otherwise, this could be a pretty bad conversation with our insurance company.

Dinner was delightful but served after an extensive boat cleaning, and wasn’t plated until 10 pm.

I’m not proud of how the night went, but my fish and chips with a spicy slaw is easily in the top 5 dishes in scooter’s galley history.

The next night we got to cook for Chuck and Kitsy in their kitchen with a big gas range, and room to walk around. The simple pleasures of living on land won’t be taken for granted when we get there.

January 22, 2021

Same ol’ San Diego

Sun, a guest, and another fun week.

This week starts on a low note. In the 3 weeks since we submitted our coast guard documents, the coast guard has processed 5 days worth of papers. They update what day is being processed and they’ve inched up to October 27th. So I’m interpreting that as it’s unlikely we’ll get the priority request, and we’re about 2 months out from the right papers to apply for our clearance into Mexico. So here’s hoping this says December 17th soon.

While here we’ve been able to reconnect with friends, cook for a bunch of people, find an in-person church (meeting outdoors) and get back some sense of community. So maybe there’s a bigger reason to be stuck in San Diego. Until we figure out what that is, we’ll continue to improve the boat to sell someday and entertain more visitors. Right now, it’s looking like we’ll take a return trip to Catalina and the Channel Islands next week. I’m selfishly hoping there’s a divine reason to be in San Diego, otherwise it’s cause I screwed up the boat documents.

In the meantime, Tay and I have been exploring on land, but all the cool spots on land are on the coast so we still rarely venture more than a few hundred yards from the ocean. We hiked around La Jolla and drove forty minutes North to Oceanside which was fun because sailing the same stretch on the way down took us all day.

This weekend, our college friend Andy flew in from Billings to visit. We finally got back to sailing after a few weeks tied to the dock. We had perfect conditions for our usual visitor activities, the dinghy ride, a hike, a beach day, fishing, and a day out sailing.

Taylor caught a regular one. Andy got skunked.

Andy’s a good vacationer and an even better friend so his priority was to relax and chat. So maybe we spent a little more time in the cabin of the boat than with some guests, but it was awesome. And I was in heaven because I got to cook the entire time.

The food-highlight was Sushi. We bartered some bluefin tuna and yellowtail collar off of our ol’ pal Dave, in exchange for some cocktails. And we finally made a trip to Point Loma Seafoods, for some salmon and Ahi (and a pint of pickled ginger). We also learned it doesn’t take much fish to make way too many rolls to eat. We had plenty of opportunities to practice our rolling and presentation techniques.

The surplus fish allowed us to have a medley of fish tacos the following night. Andy likes Italian food, so we also got to make my take on a Chicken Cacciatore, and parmesan polenta. The weekend of good food lead me to want to post a newsletter of our weekend menu in hopes of enticing more visitors. Stay tuned.

Here’s to a fun sunny wait, and in the words of Dave Easton, “It’s already Spring in San Diego”.

January 22, 2021

Happy New Year!

Cheers to 2021!

Kim Buschy, the world’s best mother-in-law, always said we needed something dramatic to get this country back together, like a plague or aliens. Unfortunately, the plague was more divisive, but I’m hoping the optimism surrounding 2021 and the gratitude toward every hint of normal will be what we all need to reunite… or maybe aliens. Speaking of Kim, she texted us last Wednesday about our NYE plans, and within an hour had booked a flight to visit, and within a day was having dinner with us on the boat. We’re grateful for her spontaneity and we had a blast!

In just a few days we hit all the bases to show her our temporary life in San Diego.

Dinghy Rides
An over-the-top-dinner with Chuck and Kitsy
Watching a Sailboat Race (shoutout to Chuck for taking us out)
Fish tacos
Hiking & touristing in San Diego
Kickin it with Eunice
Our boat’s electrical system failure
More water pump issues.

Acorn Squash, Filet Mignon topped with seared Foie Gras, Twice Baked Potato, Lobster.

Chuck let me drive. It’s the fastest boat I’ve ever driven by far.

Eunice loves it when people tie their shoes.

Scooter’s electrical issues not pictured (But they are fixed!)

Scooter’s water pump issues not pictured.

Here’s to 2021.

January 22, 2021

A Very Scooter Christmas

Floating festivities.

I’m a big Christmas person. I’ve always loved the traditions. Since this year was Tay and my first Christmas on the boat, and it is going to be forever our memory of our first family Christmas, expectations and stoke levels were high. I told Taylor every 15 minutes, for a full week, how excited I was for Christmas morning.

Shoutout to Lauren Wilbur for the sweet Ornament!

On Christmas Eve, Tay and I skated. We like to skate on holidays because the skate parks are usually pretty empty so we’re less in the way and less embarrassed.

Yes we had fun, yes I bled a bit, no we’re not good.

We were invited to dinner with Chuck and Kitsy and seized the opportunity to take our dinghy across the bay as our Christmas transportation. My wish in life is for one more year, however many years from now, for the dinghy to be the preferred means of transportation to Christmas eve dinner.

Dinner with Chuck and Kitsy was decadent as always. A feast to remember. They gave us a set of steak knives for the boat, which shows how generous they are, but also observant as a few weeks back they had to use paring knives at dinner on the boat

A highlight of Christmas eve was the dinghy ride back. Sometimes we kill the motor and drift in the bay. It’s quiet, dark, and wonderful to feel disconnected floating along. It’s isolated but surrounded by the bright boat lights and hills of houses.

Christmas morning was our first Christmas as our own little family. We love our families and miss them dearly, but we were excited to celebrate as our own unit. Eunice’s stocking was filled, I made a frittata, and the small boat floor filled quickly with wrapping paper.

Santa Came but Eunice couldn’t even pretend to be excited.

Growing up the Christmas day tradition was a long walk or cross country ski with the family. This year was a fitting nautical version of that when we met up with our local family and went for a boat ride. We cruised the bay and enjoyed the sunny December day.

We tagged along to Chuck and Kitsy’s dinner plans with their friends, cruised sunset cliffs in a ’48 woodie, and had a photo shoot with some inflatable Christmas decorations.

I’ve never felt more famous than riding in this thing. People gawk hard.

All in all, expectations were high for this Christmas and we couldn’t have asked for more. Oh yeah! and Taylor made cookies in our oven, which has the temperature control of a steel box with a candle in the bottom and one big door…sorry that’s not a very colorful analogy, that’s what it is.