Yes, we are way behind on posting, but slowly but surely we are catching up to real time”¦
Thursday, November 26 Over the last month, we have taken Kosmos out a couple of times to the ocean to dump the septic tank and give her some exercise. The first time was uneventful. The second time, a sailboat race was going on. As we headed out to sea, we found ourselves facing literally hundreds of sailboats on their way back in the entrance to the bay. We felt like we were in a living video game as we continually dodged the dozens upon dozens of boats that surrounded us. We were relived when we had completely passed them.
On weeks where we don’t take Kosmos out, Eric runs the various components (engine, wing engine, generator, bow thrusters, etc) while in the slip to keep all the components exercised.
Most days this month it has been warm, sunny and clear, but the nights have been cold and damp. Christi is physically not doing well in the cool, moist environment, finding it difficult to breathe at night. We run the heater at night, but it doesn’t help much. She did make a visit to the doctor, who took a chest x-ray and told her there was nothing wrong with her beyond her normal issues (she naturally has weak lungs). She tried to tell him she has never had an issue like this before, but he waved it off, telling her it was totally normal.
She happened to be wearing a diving T-shirt that day. The doctor casually said “are you a SCUBA diver” to which she replied “yes”. That was apparently the wrong answer. He gave her a very long, very stern lecture about how dangerous SCUBA is for someone with weak lungs and told her that she will surely kill herself if she ever goes diving again.
Halloween was on October 31st. In 2007 we were in Australia for Halloween, and in 2008 Spain. Neither country seemed to do much for the holiday, so we were excited to be home for it this year. Halloween has its roots in European history. The Celtic people believed ghosts came out on the night of October 31, and wore costumes so the ghosts would not recognize them. The Romans had two holidays they celebrated in October, one in honor of the goddess of fruit trees (symbolized by the apple) and one to honor the dead. When the Romans conquered the Celts, the three celebrations were all morphed into one, celebrated the night of October 31st and day of November 1st. When Christianity became the dominant religion, the Church re-named the holiday All-Saints day and put a biblical veneer on it, saying it was to honor the dead saints and martyrs, not to celebrate ghosts haunting the earth.
While many countries do celebrate All-Saints day in assorted ways, Americans have transformed the holiday into a uniquely American event, and it is quite a big deal here. Pretty much every child in the country dresses up in a costume, as do most adults. People come up with some great costumes, and the costumes alone are half the fun. It is the custom for children go from door to door begging for candy from neighbors in the early evening shortly after sundown. Then after the kids go to bed, there are Halloween parties for adults. This year there were more parties than ever because the 31st was on a Saturday. Eric dressed up as a tourist and went to a party thrown by his work. Unfortunately, since Christi wasn’t feeling well, she had to miss out on the fun.
Today is Thanksgiving Day, and just like for Halloween, we were happy to be home to join in the uniquely American celebration. In 2007, we had been in Indonesia on Thanksgiving and in 2008 we had been in the Canary Islands. For those of you who are not Americans, Thanksgiving is probably the biggest holiday of the year in our country. Since it is a cultural holiday, not a religious one, most everyone celebrates it. It is one of the few days of the year that almost all stores and businesses close. The purpose of the holiday is to take a day to count your blessings in life. The tradition is for people to gather together with loved ones, usually extended family, and eat a huge meal. The traditional meal usually includes baked turkey with stuffing, cranberry sauce, yams, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and apple pie””foods harvested in the autumn months.
There are many folk stories about the “first” Thanksgiving that swirl about, but most of them involve the pilgrims (first European settlers in America) and Indians (Native Americans) celebrating a bountiful harvest together in the early 1600’s. While there may be some truth to the stories about a joint celebration way back then, the fact of the matter was that both people groups had been holding harvest celebrations for centuries. While the pilgrims were mostly Christians, they still followed an Old Testament command to hold an annual celebration each Autumn to thank the Lord for blessing them with an abundant harvest (the Jews call this tradition Sukkot and still practice it). Likewise, most of the indigenous American tribes had a similar tradition of celebrating the end of the harvest season with feasting and ceremonial dancing.
For almost another 200 years, Thanksgiving was a popular but informal holiday, celebrated by most towns each autumn, on whatever day suited the town best. In 1789, George Washington (the United State’s first president) declared Thanksgiving an officially recognized holiday to be celebrated in October, and every state picked a different day within the month to celebrate. In 1863, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was looking for a way to unite the country. He decided to take the popular Thanksgiving holiday and expand it, declaring it a national holiday to be celebrated the last Thursday in November.
Eric’s parents hosted this year’s dinner and most of Eric’s family was there, including a relative who resides out of the country. We had a nice time visiting with everyone. Eric’s mom looked great and was energetically buzzing around as she finished up the last of the cooking and laid out the spread. It was hard to believe that only a year and a half before she had come so close to death. Now you would never know she was so sick. Her health is one of the things we are especially thankful for this year. We are thankful we close by Eric’s parents and we are trying to make the most of our time with them these days.
On the issue of health, one of our close friends was diagnosed with cancer a few days ago. He is 32 and lives a “low cancer risk” lifestyle, so this news was shocking beyond belief. He was one of the few people in our lives that were truly 100% supportive of our trip, and Eric talked to him a lot about the trip in the planning stages. We know he’ll pull through, but it is a sobering reminder of why we did the trip young instead of waiting for retirement.
We’ll close this post by making a list of things we are thankful for. Of course, first and foremost, we are thankful that we successfully (and safely) completed our circumnavigation. We are thankful that life has been going smoothly for us overall since we returned. We are thankful Eric has a good job despite the recession, and thankful that Christi has picked something she enjoys as a new career path. We are thankful for one another, for our families, and for our friends here.
This year there are some new things on the list. Some of them are things that we used to take for granted, like infrastructure. We are thankful for things like good roads, unlimited water and electricity, and an abundance of readily available food. Especially Mexican food here in San Diego! Another specific infrastructure item we are thankful for is fast and always on Internet.
We are also thankful that we got to meet so many amazing people on our world journey. It was the people that made the trip so special for us. We always believed that 99% of the people in the world are kind and good, and the trip affirmed it. We are also thankful that we have kept in touch with many of them. Maybe someday, we’ll get to see them again, too.