The first day of Christmas

Where does the time fly to? I guess Lucy on a boat is the easy answer to that! We are in a place called Paraty Mirim at the moment, and it is 2 days before Christmas, I have never felt less Christmassy in my entire life. I have bought 1 Christmas present and that is for Lucy – how shocking! And how refreshing not to be in the grip of Christmas mania. So we have now spent a week on the boat living as a proper cruising family. I think we have done pretty well so far, although I will say there are a number of home comforts that one has to get used to not having – like unlimited fresh water and a fridge would be my top 2 items. Especially here in Brazil, where it is SO humid. We have not got our fridge up to speed yet, so it is really nothing more than a cooler box at the moment, so everything we buy either has to be consumed within it’s perishable window - which is shorter than usual because of the heat - or it has to be more of the non-perishable variety. Also things don’t really dry very quickly or very well, because of both living on the boat and secondly being in the tropics, so there is constantly a stream of washing being shuffled about! We are still trying to get organised, and everything does not yet have a home, things like baby chairs and prams being some of the more challenging items! On a more interesting note, the places that we are cruising around at the moment are absolutely BEAUTIFUL, really idyllic little beaches and blue warm waters. And of course all very calm, which has been great to get into things. Yesterday we were on the dinghy back to the boat, and we saw some strange looking things in the water, so we stopped, Andrew hopped over the side, and came up with a Pansy Shell/Sand dollar the size of a hand, and not one, but hundreds littering the floor, some dead, but mostly alive, a lovely deep purple colour. And then to top it, Andrew brought up a starfish the size of a large pumpkin, which Lucy was a bit bewildered by. Today we were lying about lethargically, and Granny was making tuna sandwiches for lunch when a small local boat popped alongside selling oysters, so for the grand total of R80, or about 8 dollars, we scoffed the lot.. delicious.