Christmas Aboard

Christmas is by far, hands down, hands in the air, my favorite holiday. And it’s not just Christmas day, it’s the whole Christmas season. For my entire life, the majority of my Christmas’ have always been exactly the same. Cold, snowy (if we are lucky) and small with just 7 people doing lots of snuggling, movie watching, playing games, eating and drinking. I have fond memories of large family christmases and always enjoy whenever the family gets together however Christmas for me, is associated with quiet, with everything blanketed by the snow.

And despite having hot Christmases in my early childhood, it’s now a cold christmasy that does it for me. Especially as we have aimed to distance ourself from the commercialism and materialism that seems to come out in full throttle around Christmas time, we don’t experience the carols and trees and lights that are playing in a shopping centre for example. In fact, we actively avoid shopping centers. To be honest, we don’t really miss it (the commercialism or the stuff). And since I associate Christmas with cold and snow, just being outside doesn’t trigger any Christmas love. However, it is these sensory cues that provide some of the Christmas feels! 

So without any effort on our part, Christmas in the tropics could easily just pass us by with a blink of the eye. So we must make the effort! When we first bought Batty, my mum put together a small collection of decorations and ornaments from our personal stashes at home and sent them along for our Christmases aboard. Just the “essentials”: a small tree, a tiny nativity, stockings and a couple of other random ornaments and I supplemented the stash with some tinsel I picked up last year after Christmas. Oh and I forgot to mention the best part, we have special handmade Christmas Pillowcases. Call it unnecessary but it’s a small way to spread the cheer throughout the boat! I don’t think any of us thought it would take as long as it did for us to use them but use them we have and what a difference it made! 

This past Christmas, we planned to have not only our first Christmas on the boat, but our first friend Christmas! We had planned to meet a couple of other boats at Magnetic Island to celebrate. The weather ended up interfering and unfortunately, one of the boats wasn’t able to make it. The downpours that were predicted to hit seemed to magically (Christmas Magic!!) bypass Maggie and we had the most glorious day. 

Christmas Eve was spent on land with some friends. This picture pretty much sums it up! :)

Photo Credit: Jeff Coates

On Christmas Day, we woke up had a special breakfast, spent the morning opening a few presents and calling our family and friends. We then headed over to our friend’s boat where we spend the afternoon eating and hanging out. It was a wonderful low-key day! 

Photo Credit: Bec Richards

From Bryce, Batty and I, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope you had a lovely day wherever you were! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are constantly grateful for everything that we have but as Thanksgiving is a solid reminder to give thanks, there are a few things in particular that we are thankful for.

We are thankful to be here in Port Moresby as that means that Bryce has a job. We are also (so extremely) thankful that today is Bryce's last full day of said job and that means we go home to Batty on Monday!!! We are thankful for you, our friends and family who are reading this and supporting us on our journey. Last but not least we are thankful to have been invited to share a delicious Thanksgiving meal with a great group of people! 

We were invited to have Thanksgiving at the Ambassador's residence. Most of the people there were embassy staff and it was very clear that they are like family to each other, yet they welcomed us and the other non-staffers as if we were family as well. There was an amazing spread, to which everyone contributed. It was seriously the best meal I've had since we've been here! 

We are just now waking up after sleeping through our food coma. Bryce will be heading off to his last day of work soon!! To those of you still celebrating, continue to enjoy the friends, family and food.

Much love,

Alissa & Bryce

A Story About Rocks

I have a story to tell you. About a rock. 

The main highway into downtown Port Moresby is scattered with neatly organized piles of rocks and stones. It takes a discerning person to distinguish the “official” piles of rocks from the random piles of rubble that are the result of roadwork. 

Lokal stori says that one day a man put a rock by the side of the road. The next day he went back and the rock had moved, seemingly by itself. Wanting to test the limits of the rock moving, he created a pile of rocks. The next day, he returned and the pile had moved. Word spread about the rocks that moved and soon enough, many others were creating piles of rocks. 

And that is the story, that some people believe, about why there are random piles of rocks by the side of the road.

Of course, the more feasible story is that the random rock piles are there to be sold, waiting to be bought for the use in seawalls, gardens, etc. Around town, there are various other roadside shopping hotspots where you can buy items such as tires, billums, which are local woven bags and art work. These items generally, though not always, have people nearby from who you can purchase them. In my experience though, the rocks are always alone, which could lead you to wonder how they got there in the first place.