Christmas on the water

There. I think the picture says it all. Colorful LED lights festooned over Little Wanderer 2 and - you can't hear this now - carols by artistes ranging from Sinatra to ACDC (yes, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen in rock riffs!) on the stereo, good conversation and (most importantly), time with family.

I think the weekend of Dec 16/17 sums up Christmas as it is lived in our family. We have always been big on Christmas. We observe Advent (ok, some of us do). We go to church and feel the goosebumps when the priest and altar boys process up the aisles to O Come, All Ye Faithful. We think about the past year and how we can live the next year as better people.

December is when we (C and A) have always taken the bulk of our annual leave. The office can just go shove it and cope, somehow. We spend time with family, whether we are thinking about and getting the gift that will be just right, or just hanging over a meal of bak kut teh in a far-flung, time-forgotten spot in Punggol or just trying not to doze off in front of the telly at home.

This year, we hit on the idea of marking a night in a berth at our boat's home base Raffles Marina, decorating the boat and just chilling. It is just so not our scene to mill with the throngs on Orchard Road and drape ourselves over every available Christmas decoration, lighted bush or rock there, and to have to avoid the folks with eyes glued to their phones while they edit their selfies and post it on Facebook.

The day hadn't started promisingly. The skies were grey as we headed for Tuas, and a drizzle started as we made our way to the marina just before 4pm; and as we unloaded our stuff, the wet came down. When life deals you a lemon, you make lemonade, or, in our lingo, when life deals you a bit of wait time, you chill and have a beer.

At around 5.30pm, the rain tailed off. We moved LW2 to Berth E08, moored it and put up the decs.

All green garlands need a spot of red for Christmas.
We got this drapey one flecked with "snow" at Takashimaya,
and felt it incomplete until we found red "holly berries"
 and a "cardinal" (above and below).

As daylight dimmed, we brought out our supplies of champagne, turned up the carols and just relaxed. Our underwater lights came on blue, as the twinkling Christmas lights grew bolder in the failing light.

Another of Raffles Marina's beautfiul sunsets,
as seen from Berth E08.

Drone time. C sent up his Mavic Pro drone
for some stills and video.

We took a break for dinner at the marina's Chinese restaurant, Captain's Table, and weren't disappointed. (Yes, this is a shout-out for above-average Chinese food to those who are in the vicinity of Tuas or can be bothered to drive out to these boonies.)

We also took a room in the marina as a back-up and in case anyone preferred a bed on terra firma to being on the boat for the night. We took showers in the room; it is certainly better than to shower in the claustrophic box of a space on board the boat!

J1, fresh from a week-long holiday in Sapporo, retired for the night relatively early, leaving J2, C, A and R on board. A surprising number of boats out there were on shore power, given the number of sunflower-yellow cables tethered to the power points on the docks. But as the night wore on, it was really quiet out there. The water was like glass. A couple of other boats had night owls like us, still up and enjoying the cool December night.

We four were there till nearly 3am. All in, five bottles of champers and two of prosecco were finished among the five of us. Scary, but true.

This is the first time we have marked Christmas on the water this way, and going by the way it turned out, it might well be the start of another of our family's Christmas traditions.