Jeff's Log ~ December 25th, 2007

Tuesday, December 25, 2007, Christmas Day

Today is Christmas. The time is flying by here in Thailand. It’s a very warm, pleasantly breezy day today, and the beach is very crowded. I went to Chalong yesterday afternoon. I went to my internet place and put Clara’s Christmas gift in the mail. I am not going to tell what it is, you will all have to wait till she gets it. At this point, Let me wish all of my friends and family a merry Christmas. I miss you all, and that gets a little stronger during the holidays.

I was planning to go for Christmas dinner at a little restaurant here in the bay, but Keith, one of the race crew, told me about a freebie that he was attending right up the street from Coconut Bar. Well, I guess I must be turning into a real sailor because that word FREE sounded pretty good to me. I met him there at about 7:30 and there already was a buffet going on I ordered a beer and made my way to my favorite….food. It wasn’t a traditional Christmas dinner, but it was mostly western food. There was great barbequed chicken, and a sliced pork loin in gravy, mashed potatoes, salad and some great barbequed fish. I met a few other sailors there, and we all had a pretty good time. They had a band outside, and actually sang a couple of good ol’ American Christmas carols. I got myself a souvenir hat. We took some pictures with the waitress and my hat. She thought we were a little daffy, but that’s ok, because we were. I went back to Coconut’s after and had a nightcap before returning to the boat.

The wheels on the back of the dingy make a huge difference in the amount of work necessary to beach and launch the dingy. They are low enough to enable me to motor almost all of the way in. The prop is just protected and held up out of harms way. The skeg is in the sand, but that’s not so serious. When I have to stop the motor, there is only about eight inches of water that I step into, and I can drag it up fairly easily, even at low tide.

I received a merry Christmas e-mail from the boss and he gave me a generous Christmas bonus. I thought that was really nice. It was also completely unexpected. Clara had also sent pictures from my Big Brother’s visit. Becky, it was good to see that you treated him just like you do me! Love ya!

I’ve been watching the weather in Wisconsin, and it looks like they should have had a cold, white, Christmas. Chrissy is visiting Clara from North Carolina, and she and the girls will be making her annual Christmas fudge. If any of you have a chance, try some. It of course is low calorie, low sugar and low fat, NOT!

Today, I decided I would just relax and hang out on the boat, and was pleasantly surprised by a couple of dingies full of complete strangers that stopped to wish me a merry Christmas just because of the American flag flying on the transom. They all said that it was good to see a properly sized flag, instead of the little ones that most people fly. That made me feel a bit warm and fuzzy.

A few days ago, it rained and the air behind the rainstorm was very cool. The hills surrounding the bay were steaming and making their own clouds. That was a first for me, and now I really understand “rainforest” I sent a couple pics of that. I only hope that you can see it when the pics are shrunk.