Amari - Day 8 Thanksgiving

Today is my most favorite of all our holidays, called Thanksgiving. Whereas Christmas time has become this garish explosion of gift giving, Thanksgiving is about family and food and friendship and fun.

This holiday commemorates the time the original pilgrims, who were starving and couldn’t figure out how to live in this strange new land, were helped by the American Indians, who taught the visitors how to grow their own produce and survive.

How we returned the favor (taking their lands and banishing them to reservations) never made it in the story somehow.

We use this holiday as a time to give thanks for what you have, and focus on the things that matter most. It’s example is the fabled feast they shared with the Indians – yes, okay actually the Indians were the ones doing the sharing.

For this feast, they made do with the foods they had on hand, but what that actually included is the stuff(ing) of legends. We mimic the meal with turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberries, green beans, stuffing, gravy, and then pumpkin and apple pies.

Amari is a long way from home, but we celebrated in kind just the same. What a fun time to crank the music, get into the kitchen and make these foods. If I only had my Pilgrim hat!

And like those original oceanic travelers, we just don’t have a super Walmart or Carrefour to source this gigantic amount of food. So we made do with what we had on board.

We started yesterday, setting a turkey breast out to thaw, making corn bread for the stuffing, and starting the base for the gravy. Today we sautéed sweet potatos w butter and cinnamon, made the stuffing, roasted the turkey, and assembled the apple crisp for dessert.

Love. When. This. Happens!

In addition to sharing food, family, and friends, you must also do a gratitude inventory of the things you are thankful for. Of course, being on Amari takes that list sideways somewhat.

I am grateful for intact sails, for functioning joker valves in the head, in-mast furling, for gimbaled stoves, for 5200 adhesive, for autopilot, and for a relatively sane crew.

But I’m also thankful for my wife who is my complete partner is all this, my family who may think I’m the one whose crazy but supports me anyway, and the amazing number of friends we have met along the way. I’m the luckiest man in Earth.

T-day Dinner (OMG thankful for an LPG gas canister that doesn’t leak!) commenced with turkey, brown gravy, stuffing, brown gravy, mashed potatoes, brown gravy, and sweet potatoes. On the boat, just like back home, you can never have enough gravy.

During the post T-day back porching together, we remarked how we were living the dream we breathed into life many years ago. Yes, there are sacrifices- missed holidays with family, lost earnings, the conveniences and luxuries of land-based living.

But actually living out your dream? Priceless.