This year (2025) is our fifth set of holidays on board. I hadn’t given it much thought as to how it would be as we roamed thousands of miles away from family and friends. But over the years we’ve handled the holidays a number of ways, not always good.

The holiday season is fraught with risks to our physical and emotional health in the best of times. Upset feelings, stress, and eating too much all come to mind. The holiday season while cruising takes all of these and amps them up to a large intensity..

Our first year cruising did not go overly well. By mid November we’d messed up our rudder and were stuck in a boat yard in Virginia. Cold, with limited electricity, and having had our propane system removed so the yard crew could get to our rudder post we were cooking on a single electric burner. And with no heat on the boat we were COLD. I’m not going to lie, the isolation of being the only boat in the yard with folks living on it, being disabled, out of the water, and so far away from everyone and everything.. I was looking at the prices of apartment buildings back close to family. There was no significant thanksgiving dinner that year. By Christmas we were in the water and tied to a free dock and I ended up having too much to drink. It was a sad and depressing holiday season.

Our second year was much, much better. We had Thanksgiving dinner with friends in Charleston SC, and spent Christmas anchored off the beautiful Cumberland Island in Georgia. Planning ahead we were able to enjoy both and to make sure we had cell phone reception for calls back to family.

Third year we did even better. We’d sailed all the way down to St. Augustine Florida. Sprung for a multi-month stay in a marina (Marker 8) so that we could spend the holidays with new friends that tend to end up there each year. St. Augustine has a great cruisers network as well making the town a wonderful stop. Time with friends and plenty of connectivity to call back home to chat with friends and family suffering through the cold. I think I’d rank that season as our best.

Year four was our winter in Maine in the water just 20 minutes from family. Seven months tied to that dock and I can count on one hand how many times we saw family. It was pleasant of course and almost back to normal, but it made me consider in our land based lives how much do we actually get face time with family? Not as much as I romanticized in my rose colored memories.

And now we’re in year five. We’re in Oriental NC, in a marina with pretty much no one else here, a three mile bike ride to the closest store, and fairly isolated. But we have a boat in good health, we’re all in good health, and we even have starlink powered up giving us the ability to call back to friends and family when ever we want.

So what have I learned over these past few years?

First I’ve learned that I’m overly sensitive to the wellbeing of the boat itself, this is out home and holds just about everything we own. I’ve learned that we don’t spend enough time with family and friends when we are physically close to them. And I’ve learned that voice calls and video calls and never ending text threads can go a long way and in many ways is just about what we do most of the time when we are physically close too.

I’ve also learned the importance of planning ahead. There are communities such as St. Mary’s Georgia for Thanksgiving that does special holiday get together for cruisers. Meeting up with other cruisers can make all the difference with feelings of isolation and loneliness in the holidays.

And I’ve also learned that there is a difference between solitude and loneliness. Our holidays at anchor when we were the only boat there have also been wonderful experiences.

In the end the key I’ve found is to be intentional. To know yourself and to plan accordingly.

Modern communications technology can bridge a lot of gaps mailing a holiday season while cruising much less isolating than in years past. And for those like us who have an annual migratory pattern watching your pattern and reconnecting in person with friends and family is important. But given that most folks are caught up in their own lives it’s best to plan an extra long stay in port to allow friends to connect and not to expect too much.

For those traveling longer distances who might not circle back home for years then leveraging that communications technology and trying not to forget those you left behind.

Happy holidays everyone..