“This has to be the most disgusting cooking method I can think of.” Steelie-Pete wrinkles his nose and pinches a skewer of meat between two fingers. The sun is bright, a light breeze leaves gentle cat-paws over the surface waters of the anchorage, and the tang of briquette smoke meets my nose. It’s Christmas Day, and we have arrived aboard Steel Sapphire just in time for a traditional summertime Christmas Picnic.
...Traditional. Christmas. Summertime...?
I mean what I said, and I said what I mean.
Every now and then on this sailing adventure, our world gets shuffled upside down and we experience an alterate reality to our own - which, obviously enough, is just “reality.”
Christmas is a summertime holiday.
In a solid half of the world, Christmas does not involve any snow. No reindeer. No sled. They don’t heat the house with the warmth of an oven roasting meat, heavy mashed potatoes with rich cream, feasts of long-store root vegetables, pies made of fruit preserves are not the accepted fare. Instead of family feasts around a crackling fireplace, these people don their swimming “togs,” “jandals”, and “bugee smugglers,” grab their surfboards and sand-castle paraphernalia, and head out to the closest beach for a picnic.
We’ve spent two Christmas seasons away from home during this sailing extravaganza, and each time we do our best to bring our family traditions out to sail aboard Sonrisa. Dedicated as ever about this particular issue, I remained steadfast about attempting to piece something together despite my injured back.
“You have to take me shopping just one day," I tell Andrew supine on the couch, propped on a strategic pile of pillows, eyeballs lolling a round in my head from a fresh dose of the chemical concoction keeping me sane.
“No, you are instructed to rest.”
“I know, but just one day for a few hours! You have been too good this year to only get a lump of coal in your stocking!" I explain.
“No.”
I scowl and stave off a wave of claustrophobia. I decide a shift in strategy will be required, and I begin negotiations to delegate my efforts. I conduct the last of my Christmas Shopping for family at home online, from the comfort and safety of my land couch. For Andrew, I employ super-secret Christmas Elves to help.
As luck would have it, these same super-secret Christmas Elves had Christmas traditions and plans of their own. “We know you guys have all sorts of traditions you try to keep, but were thinking about hosting a traditional Christmas lunch aboard Steel Sapphire. Would you like to come?” Pete and Jen offer up.
Would we ever!
Having Christmas Day planned aboard Steel Sapphire, the Sonrisa Crew turned our attention to Christmas Eve. Andrew made lap after lap grocery shopping, gift shopping, and toting cooking utensils and extra dishes from Sonrisa to accommodate four people at the land abode - which was only appointed for two. He wraps presents, strings out lights, and conscripts the apartment cactus to stand in as our “Christmas Tree.” I help as best I can (which isn't much) and somehow, by Christmas Eve we are ready to dine and celebrate.
For a starter, we enjoy champagne and a toasted Seychellois Baguettes with garlic oil, topped with caramelized onion, rosemary sprigs, and ricotta cheese.
Meanwhile, Andrew mixes a thyme infused crepe batter and with finesse and style most French, turns out a series of thin, delicate, and soft savory crepes using only a non-stick fry pan. This man has so many talents. He fills these crepes with mushrooms sautéed in a red wine reduction and beef tenderloin strips, which are quickly pan seared to caramelize the surface but retain their tenderness. Wrapped in the crepe, this is topped with a creamy and butter based béchamel sauce. Arugala, spinach, parsley mixed greens are topped with a citrus vinaigrette on the side. This is served with a nice red wine Pete and Jen brought along.
For dessert, we attempt to whip cream by hand (lacking a beater that plugs into the proper non-American voltage), but just before Pete was about to call it "Whipped" it suddenly transformed before our very eyes into sweetened, vanilla flavored butter and whey! When life gives you lemons, we make lemonade. So, we transform our “whipped cream" into bourbon butter and use that atop mini mince pies for dessert.
I'm a little sad when everyone departs and I’m left alone in my land abode for my Christmas Eve sleep, but by the next morning Andrew is early at my door to fetch me and take me for my first excursion out and about in almost a week.
Santa DID visit Sonrisa, and left all sorts of nice presents for her whole crew! Andrew serves me a weakened Irish Cream Coffee (this time with properly fresh whipped cream) while we all open our gifts and I enjoy some very loving snuggles from Katherine Hepburn.
Around noon, we arrive aboard Steel Sapphire to find Steelie and her crew dressed up and festive. Even Coco de Mere is in on the action, circling Jen’s feet hoping for a share of marinated shrimp.
It’s not long until the gents are circling the Barbie, and I am poised with my long lens capture a real (Scottish) Australian Lad actually place “another Shrimp on the barbie” while whinging (the Australian word for whining) over the perceived unsanitary nature of it all.
“I just find them disgusting. They are so unhygienic. No one washes them, ever! So, you put hunks of raw meat on there and then never clean them off?"
“You burn it off with heat," Andrew argues. "And you are supposed to scrub the grill with a wire brush while you incinerate all the black bits until they disintegrate. Its probably the cleanest cooking apparatus to exist." Pete does not accept this argument as he monitors the status of the marinated and cooking shrimp (which in Australia only be referred to as Prawns, anyway.)
The party includes several travel-orphans like ourselves we've met over the course of our time in the Seychelles - some are sailors, some are here working from other countries, and a couple others were on vacation when Covid hit and decided to stay while lockdown in their own countries proceeded and it seems safe and nice here in the Seychelles.
The menu offers fresh avocado and tomato salad, mango and bell pepper salad, marinated and grilled shrimp, marinated and grilled chicken and beef tenderloin skewers, potato salad, and deliciously sweet corn on the cob topped with butter. As I nibble at these fresh, light, and perfectly ripe summertime fruits and vegetables, I realize THIS is the menu meant for all our Island-Christmas vacations! It has all the essence of a special meal prepared for a special day, but a palate light enough not to weigh you down under a tropical sun. Perfection.
After lunch, we play a round of Christmas gift giving that involves the right to “steal" other people's presents if you so choose. This makes gift giving and receiving a more raucous affair, and when the girl next to me unwraps a box of THREE inflatable unicorn drink holders, this Oddgodfrey coveted them so badly I almost stole them away - but she seemed to love them so much, I couldn't bring myself to do it. My overly developed guilt-complex allowed the perfect Oddgodfrey gift to slip through my grasp. Andrew, however, had no compunction about stealing two hand made "fish” made from coconut husks by a local Seychellois man, purchased and offered as a Christmas gift by a most memorable fellow sailor from Belgium, Pascale.
I had to turn in before the party was completely over, but it was such a lovely day with Andrew, Kitty, Sonrisa, Grin, and our friends aboard Steel Sapphire that I didn't mind so much. As Andrew deposited me back at the Land Apartment, my mood was improved with the injection of Christmas Cheer. Like the Grinch who Stole Christmas, my heart grew a few sizes as I contemplated all the good works done by Andrew and my gathering of friends here in the Seychelles.
In my good cheer, I felt so grateful for all Andrew and my friends had done to make my Christmas so memorable and special. Certainly, I wish to be strong and healthy again so that I can contribute to my friendships in the way that feels more like me. But in the meantime, what does all my fear and despair say about how little credit I give my friends - Andrew, specifically?
“Do you really think he’d give up on you just because you (hopefully temporarily) cannot do some of the things you used to do?” I ask myself.
Of course not. There is nothing like a sea passage with your spouse to drive home the point that you rely on each other for your very survival. I trust Andrew completely in that scenario to bring his highest levels of commitment and effort to the day, and I realize this is what I meant when I married him and said I trust him with my heart.
And my faith in him is for good reason.
Over the course of our seventeen years together (married and dating combined), he has always shown me loyalty, patience, creativity, commitment, and power. I have an obligation to do what I can, too, but I need not catastrophize over what might be. We know how to work together to move around road bumps, reconstruct our world and ourselves to either overcome, cope with, and/or minimize the bouts of bad luck we face. We've done it before, we will do it again: together.
