The weather is a little squally and overcast, our young crews bright red Christmas hats and big smiles stand out in the grey/blue that is surrounding us – quite fitting weather for Christmas though as long as it stays dry 😉 The galley has been in use again since early morning and the table is filling up with all sorts of nice little snacks. Cinnamon rolls, crackers with nice toppings, olives, little stuffed ham rolls… Late afternoon on the 24th it’s finally time to open our secret Santa gifts that everyone has made for one another and that magically had appeared in our Christmas tree over the last days. It was really nice to see all the thoughtful little gifts in sometimes very arty wrappings. After opening our presents and eating loads of sugar, energy levels were high 😉 So we had a ”race” around the deck. Who could make a full lap of the deck the fastest, without running though ( we don’t allow that..) so it’s more about how fast you’re able to clip your lifeline in and out at crossover points – I don’t think it got all the energy ( sugar) out of them because they kept going with push-ups, planking, and other challenges. Needless to say, we weren’t very hungry for dinner so we had a small serving of Cristina’s delicious vegetarian burgers and left the rest of our food for the following day. The night brought lots of rain and squalls so that kept us busy with sail and course changes, by morning it had completely cleared tho and we are sitting under a bright blue sky and warm sun again. Meike and Victoria made French Toast as breakfast for everyone – really yummy. Meanwhile, the miles to our destination keep ticking away, the days just seem to go by so fast – only 700nm left!

Laura