Merry Christmas!

We have enjoyed that last couple of days with only about 15 to 18 knots out of the ENE. We are anchored off of Pigs Beach, closer in than we have ever been before. The catamarans are behind us! It pays to move around at the break of day knowing that the wind change is coming. Yesterday we had the opportunity to meet some new folks from France on one of the catamarans that arrived at the Exumas the same day as us. Other agenda items were to feed the pigs with veggie scraps I had been saving for the last week, dive Thunderball grotto, as well as drive the dinghy counterclockwise around Big Majors, including the little cut between Big Majors and Fowl Cay. We did most of this with film rolling on the 'Dena cam,' a new go-pro camera with multiple mounts, including a headband. We found our head cam mount does not lend itself well to capturing the essence of snorkeling, it splashes between under and above water - something I found annoying as a viewer. These are pretty significant files therefore we will need decent internet before we can share any videos of our adventures.
We dove the grotto again today and met more new folks from France. We also swam at our anchorage to take a look at the anchor. A huge hermit crab caught my attention until I saw a shark swimming along the bottom in the distance. I told Myron there was a shark and I was heading back to the boat. I did not tell him the location of the shark, which was not very fair to him. Once we cleared that up and I turned to head back to Hold Fast, to my surprise I saw another shark swim under our boat. One would think this was a very clever strategy by the sharks. However, these were nurse sharks, which are bottom feeders and not really interested in any encounter with humans. Regardless, it gets your nerve up!
There are not many Christmas movies in our library, I only found The Holiday and Elf. I hope to rectify that with ebay when we are back in the states. I did make fudge to share with our new friends and we have on occasion filled the air with Christmas music. I miss playing the music on my piano (thank you Jen, Jody and the girls for taking care of it in our absence). It is hard to pick a favorite carol, but I am partial to Angels We Have Heard on High, O Holy Night, and The First Noel. I was thinking about the lyrics to the last one "…Noel, noel, born is the King of Israel…" and the scriptures that support such words in Zechariah 9:9 and Matthew 2:2. We are so thankful to God that He did indeed render goodwill toward men and give us peace with Him through Jesus. Jesus has yet to return to take His Throne in Jerusalem. We long for that day, for then there will truly be peace on earth.
May the blessing of Christmas touch your heart as we celebrate that Holy Night, O Night Divine!
Love to all,
Dena

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