Christmas at Lake Worth

Goliath hadn’t been feeling too well so we started our morning by trying to find a vet on Christmas Eve. He had been vomiting and was starting to get dehydrated. We gave him some Gatorade, which he took a few slurps of. He started to perk up a bit so we decided to take a slip for the night just in case he got worse. He did all right and we took him for a long dinghy ride exploring the lakes and canals in the area. It was pretty cool watching hundreds of pelicans dive bombing head first into the water to catch their fill of mullet. Somewhere along the way Goliath got into something as he started to scratch like crazy. We couldn’t see anything on him but bathed him and generally tried to relieve his agitated state.

Mary had purchased a large whole chicken in Fort Pierce for our Christmas dinner so that afternoon she began preparing Christmas Eve dinner. While she was working on that I heard a call on the VHF from a boat we had seen several times in the last week. He was coming into the marina and was looking for directions. All staff was off for the holiday so I helped him in. He tied up in the slip next to us.

A nice young guy sailing solo who had set out for the Bahamas in questionable weather. His autopilot gave up on him and he missed the Bahamas by some 20+ miles to the north so he turned around and sailed back. We decided he needed some home cooking so invited him for dinner.

Dinner was great with chicken, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy. Christmas on a boat is very uncomplicated. No presents, just enjoy the day. We stayed Christmas Day and enjoyed the peacefulness of a very quiet day.