St. Augustine is a beautiful city. It is famous for their Nights of Lights, a downtown-wide Christmas light display that brings in tourists from all over the world. We first learned about this event in a laundry room in Beaufort, North Carolina before Thanksgiving (thanks for the tip, Jim!) and ever since it had been our goal for our first Christmas aboard Alaya.
After a few rolly nights at anchor in the outer harbor, we moved to our mooring ball in the municipal harbor on December 23. Alaya was now in the thick of things. Every night, we could see the beautiful skyline from our cockpit and it was fun to watch and hear the various holiday tour boats making their rounds in the harbor. We could easily ride Margaret P. into town and park her at the town’s dinghy dock (we learned the hard way that you need to register her with the office or else your dinghy gets impounded). Once (legally) docked, we were right downtown.
Another awesome thing about St. Augustine is that our friends on SV Pokey were there waiting for us! We hadn’t seen Sean and Anna since before Thanksgiving, we have been a few days behind them for almost a month.
On Christmas Eve, Lucas and I hosted a nautical version of our annual Christmas Eve Party. Lucas made his famous buffalo chicken dip (a recipe we got from our friend Chris who got it from the back of Frank’s Red Hot sauce bottle) and I made spinach artichoke dip and buckeyes. Anna brought an amazing charcuterie board. Earlier in the day, we noticed a new boat near us with a younger couple on board. We motored over and met Sarah and Dan, the crew of SV Victoria. We invited them over for Christmas Eve and I’m so glad that we did. The six of us swapped stories in Alaya’s cockpit all evening, enjoying one of the warmest days we have had on trip so far. While we certainly missed our normal Christmas Eve crowd of friends and family, it was fun to host new friends in our floating home.
Christmas morning arrived and as always, I got up very early. I spent the morning baking while watching my favorite Christmas movies. Lucas had requested cinnamon rolls, so I used Grandma Annie’s tried and true recipe. I also made crème brule for dessert later. Crème brule in a toaster oven actually worked way better than I expected, although a few of them were a little unlevel due to the gimbaled oven.
Lucas had a very Lucas-Christmas morning too. After a nice sleep-in, he went over to our new friends on SV Victoria to help them with their faulty generator. After a few tries, they got it working again! A Christmas miracle! When he got back we lunched on cinnamon rolls.
After a few days without showering, we were pretty salty and in need of a Christmas shower. It was a nice warm day but rainy, so we put on our full foul weather suits for the wet ride into town. Before we went to the marina’s bath house, I got my Christmas wish and we went hunting for dolphins. The rain picked up just as we took Margaret under the famous Bridge of Lions. Luckily, we didn’t have to go too far before spotting a group of dolphins feeding in the bay – mission accomplished! We turned back towards the docks and got pelted with rain drops. As we pulled up to the dock, I noticed a brown blob just under the water. Lucas killed the engine and we realized it was a sea turtle! Our first turtle and dolphins?! Christmas had truly arrived for the Kizers in St. Augustine.
In the afternoon we video chatted with family and I baked my last dish for the day, my mom’s famous broccoli and cauliflower casserole. Unfortunately all this baking drained Alaya’s batteries down to almost nothing but that’s a problem for another day. We then packaged the casserole up for dinghy transport (aka wrapped a bunch of towels around it and rode in the dinghy with oven mitts on) and joined Sean and Anna for a delicious Christmas dinner. After dinner, we packed up the crème brule and headed over to our new friends on SV Victoria for a rambunctious game and crème brulee night. The evening ended with a debate about the greatest vocalist of our generation – SV Victoria and SV Pokey voted for Miley Cyrus, half of SV Alaya (aka Lucas) voted for Rihanna. I still haven’t decided.
Riding home in the dinghy on a completely still, beautiful Christmas evening, we felt extra thankful for the life we have built, the friends we are making and the adventures we are having aboard Alaya.
