Merry Christmas yo

December 20, 2005 – 2:37 PM – I’m making a list and checking it twice

Every Christmas season Majuro hosts a parade during which a Marshallese Santa (Hawaiian shirt and red shorts because any other Santa suit would be too hot) and his helpers toss trash bins of candy to the droves of children waiting along the sides of the road. Last Saturday I was one of Santa’s helpers.

So. Many. Kids. I felt like Gandhi or something. There were literally hundreds of kids running along side the truck waiting for more candy. We must have unloaded a few hundreds pounds of candy that day into the general community. And since there’s only one main road, all traffic was stopped in order for us to complete our candy runs. In other words, there I was, riding on the back of a truck while everything was stopped behind me and in front of me, with hundreds of kids running and screaming behind me. Quite the experience.

Also, as promised I had my first yachting experience this weekend. I manned a winch (I think that’s how it’s spelled) on Blue Moon. Surprisingly I only endangered our lives (or more specifically the intactness of the sails) once when I released the line too quickly. Luckily one of the yacht owners grabbed the line from me and quickly rectified my error. Other than that small snafu, yachting was great fun. I learned a thing or two about sailing, had a nice relaxing day on the water, and was able to talk to the two yachties about their travels.

They’ve logged a few miles (or knots) to say the least. They started in New Zealand ten years ago and have sailed to the Marshall Islands twice while hitting every single spot in between. Look at map, there’s a lot of stuff in between New Zealand and the Marshall Islands. They’ve been to all of them. Imagine living that kind of life. Your home floats and you can go anywhere you want with it. It’s almost enough to make me drop everything and become a yachtie.

Christmas break starts in two days. Once it does, I will officially be half way done.