TransAtlantic Day 8: Thanksgiving At Sea.
Today is Thanksgiving, my most favorite of all our holidays. Whereas Christmas has become this garish explosion of full contact competitive gift giving, Thanksgiving is more about family and food and friendship and fun.
This holiday commemorates the time the original pilgrims, who were starving and couldn’t figure out how to live in this strange new land. Despite their totally weird cloths, the native American Indians got over all that and graciously helped the visitors grow their own produce and just survive.
How we returned the favor never made it in the story somehow.
Nevertheless, we use this holiday as a time to give thanks for what you have, and focus on the things that matter most. Its prime example is the fabled feast they shared with the Indians – yes okay, actually the Indians were the ones doing the sharing.
But what that dinner actually included is the stuff(ing) of legends. So we mimic the meal as best we can with jellied cranberry sauce with the rings of the can still in them, turducken, sweet potatoes, green beans, stuffing, gravy, along with pumpkin and apple pies.
Amari is a long way from home, but we celebrated just the same. What a fun time to crank the music, get into the galley and make these foods. If I only had my Pilgrim hat!
And like those original oceanic travelers, we just don’t have a super Walmart or Carrefour to source this mountain of food. So we made do with what we had on board.
We started yesterday, setting a turkey breast out to thaw, making corn bread for the stuffing, and starting the base for the gravy. Today we sautéed sweet potatos w butter and cinnamon, made the stuffing, roasted the turkey, and assembled the apple crisp for dessert.
Love. When. This. Happens!
In addition to sharing food, family, and friends, you must also do a gratitude inventory of the things you are thankful for. Of course, being on Amari takes that list sideways somewhat.
I am grateful for intact sails, for that valve in the head that prevents flow from going backwards in the pipes, in-mast furling, gimbaled stoves, autopilot, and for a “relatively” sane crew.
But I’m also thankful for my wife who is my complete partner is all this, my family who may think I’m the one whose crazy but supports me anyway, and the amazing number of friends we have met along the way.
I’m the luckiest man in Earth.
T-day dinner (OMG thankful for an propane gas canister that doesn’t leak!) piled on turkey, brown gravy, stuffing, brown gravy, mashed potatoes, brown gravy, and sweet potatoes. On the boat, just like back home, apparently you can never have enough gravy.
During the post T-day back porching together, we remarked how we were living the dream we breathed into life many years ago. Yes, there are sacrifices - missed holidays, lost earnings, the conveniences and luxuries of land-based living.
But actually living out your dream? Priceless.
