A Tropical Christmas & New Years

Part of the decorations at Club Nautico's Christmas Party.

Just like at home, Christmas in the tropics is a flurry of events and parties.  For Christmas Eve we joined Miss Molly, Bendecita, and Kuhela for a Christmas Party at Club Nautico. It seems just our group and some locals were the only participants, but non-the-less we had a great time.

Presents surrounding our small quilted Xmas tree created by my sis, Durlyn.

On Christmas Day (it somehow just doesn’t seem right to not wake up to the smell of a Noble Fir in the living room) we opened presents, had a nice breakfast, then finished some last minute boat projects before joining Phil and Monica on Miss Molly for Christmas dinner. Meryl roasted a chicken and made butternut soup and Monica made some great roast potatoes and vegetables and a red cabbage side dish favorite of her families.

The beautiful and lively square beneath the El Bacon restaurant.

This is Custom's House Square. Across these bricks passed most of the gold and silver from the New World on its way to Spain. Now its lit up with beautiful Christmas displays.

Columbia, being a primarily Catholic country, goes all out for Christmas celebrations. In town there were festivals, parties, and singing groups almost every night in the squares. The town was lit up with beautiful light displays and frequently fireworks were set off in the Old Town.

Sitting in the cockpit of Miss Molly with good friends, and surrounded by the serene beauty of Cartagena at night, we all felt very blessed and quite special.

From Meryl clockwise:  Molly, Monica, Phil, Harry, Linda, Bob, Cathryn, and John.

With a lot of the major boat projects completed (so we thought), we were able to relax on New Years Eve day. We had debated going into the Old Town for New Years, but decided it would just be too wild and crazy for people at our advanced age. We opted for a more sedate New Years with the crews of Miss Molly, Bendecita, and Kuhlei at Club Nautico. The club provided appetizers and wine and some great Latin music (Columbians are great dancers, we learned. We all also had some chintzy glitter covered hats, the glitter from which covered Meryl’s body and our bed for about a month after. I stupidly thought it was some exotic makeup she had on. We actually lasted until 11:30 pm at the party, which is somewhat of a record for us. We dingied out to the boat and watched the fireworks around the bay from the safety of our cockpit. Another great year behind us.