Ahhh, Thanksgiving. It would actually be pretty easy for me to be sad about all we’re missing this particular Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite holiday, a chance to gather family and friends around a groaning table, where the food may be the visual focus, but the real point is being together and being grateful for what we’ve got. This year? We’re more than 5000 miles away from family.
Cruising can sometimes be very hard.
Hi, I’m Nica Waters, and welcome to The Boat Galley Podcast. I’m talking about Thanksgiving 2025 and how we’re actually gonna make it be totally amazing despite being really far away from family.
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This coming Thursday is American Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving for me is about abundance. An abundance of food. An abundance of gratitude. Usually, an abundance of people. Friends and family, maybe strangers who we’ve have met for the very first time right around the Thanksgiving table. My grandmother, one time, on finding a mysterious additional place set at the table, made a sign to hang on the tree outside that read “Dinner at 5; room for one more.” I absolutely aspire to this same generosity.
I can remember, with pretty sharp clarity, almost all of the Thanksgivings that we have celebrated while cruising. There was that first one, back in 1994, tied up to my great aunt and uncle’s dock in Naples, where we dug out our fanciest clothes and accompanied them to a restaurant ashore for the actual dinner. We had family right there.
The following year, we were with 4 other boats (Red Baron, Little Gidding, Phaedrus, and Eos) in the former nun’s quarters at Chacacare, which is an abandoned leper colony in Trinidad. We carried everything up to the old dining room, which we decorated to the hilt. Nina from Red Baron even sewed a tablecloth and napkins for all of us that I still have. And we ate, as usual, tons and tons of food. We found out later that we had celebrated Thanksgiving a whole week early, and none of us had figured it out.
The year we were sailing with the kids, we found ourselves actually all alone in the anchorage at Double Breasted Cays in the Abacos. And we celebrated a successful crossing of the Gulf Stream as a family of four. It was an amazing Thanksgiving.
There was Thanksgiving at sea in 2022, just over a week out from Beaufort, North Carolina, on our way to the BVI. The new fridge we had on board was too small to stash even a tiny little turkey breast, which is what I’d had in times before. So the new tradition of pork tenderloin for Thanksgiving dinner was born. Of course, all the regular sides applied, because what is Thanksgiving without those essential tastes? On our table, there are always mustard carrots and mashed potatoes and gravy. Even at sea.
Thanksgiving 2023, we were cruising on Mischief, but we stashed her in a marina in Beaufort, North Carolina, and rented a car to go join family in Connecticut. I think in the week we had that car, we put well over 1000 miles on it. But we had it; being able to celebrate in person was worth every last minute in the car. When will we get to do that again?
Last Thanksgiving, 2024, we were tucked into an anchorage at Williams Bay, Exumas, a week after leaving West Palm Beach. Yes, it was another pork tenderloin dinner, with, you guessed it, mustard carrots and mashed potatoes.
And now we’re in the Tuamotus, where carrots are in slim supply and the mashed potatoes might be the instant kind. I haven’t seen a pork tenderloin, let alone a turkey in any form other than vacuum-sealed deli slices, since Panama. But.
But friends are in the next atoll over, with friends of theirs, and we’re hatching a plan for a potluck kind of dinner together. We’ll hit the local stores here in Rangoroa in the hopes that the recent supply ship stop might have delivered so-far unseen goodies. I don’t know; we’ll figure it out. Our friends will go to the farm that’s at the next atoll over. We might not have any kind of main hunk of meat on the table. I don’t know. Maybe when we sail there, our fishing luck will be good.
We’ll have lots of delicious food, excellent conversation and laughter, and be grateful to be together, forging new memories. And it will be another Thanksgiving for the books we will never, ever forget.
Happy Thanksgiving to all! I can’t wait to share an anchorage with you. If you happen to be in Tikehau in the Tuamotus, give us a shout. Maybe you can join the fun with us, together. Thank you so much for listening to The Boat Galley Podcast. We are so grateful and thankful for all of our listeners, and we hope we give you something just a little bit to help you make boat life just a tiny bit better each week. Have the most spectacular week.
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