Last nights Christmas Eve magical silent sailing did not last. By 0100 we were bouncing around again and going nowhere. The wind maps showed no wind at our location until Monday night, but a shot at finding wind if we moved west. So we ran the engine the rest of the night and into the middle of Christmas Day.

But Christmas dawned clear and bright. With the engine running, radar watching, and the mechanical autopilot engaged, we could let the boat mind itself for a while and focus on holiday merrymaking before the Christmas bough. We had what has become our typical Christmas morning celebration since the kids moved away -coffee and Robin's delicious stollen while we saw what surprises Santa left in our stockings, followed by a breakfast of scrambled eggs with anchovies on toast, a Coplan family tradition. I know it sounds weird, but it's good.

Then we exchanged our Christmas gifts. Robin seemed pleased with the new camera with a powerful telephoto lens i found for her in Wellington. For better wildlife pictures. But it's hard to take telephoto shots of birds at sea, as we discovered. Robin gave me a great book of hikes in Australia and Tasmania, some beautiful handcrafted wooden plates and bowls, and a New Zealand made shirt.

Midday found me doing some necessary calm weather boat chores - decanting fuel from the Jerry cans to the fuel tank, and cutting and re-tying the Genoa sheets where they had chafed near the clew of the sail.

Then the wind came up enough for us to set the drifter and sail on a calm and sparkling sea. At lunchtime, a pod of dolphins came to visit, perhaps drawn by their curiosity at the Christmas chorale music playing in the cockpit. Robin reported two more dolphin pods while I napped in the afternoon.

This Christmas Day had the clearest skies we have seen yet. To log “clear” as the sky conditions, you have to be able to say you cannot see one single cloud anywhere in the sky. Today was the first time since leaving New York that we could honestly log “clear” skies.

We kept sailing right through our Christmas supper of roast stuffed turkey-roll, with cranberry sauce, roast yams, and braised cabbage. The turkey roll was a lucky find - pre-stuffed and frozen at the supermarket near Marsden Cove. Our new drawer refrigerator kept it frozen for the ten days since we left port. With plum pudding for dessert, we quite stuffed ourselves.

The wind died after dinner, and tonight I find myself motoring under the stars. But the wind is just filling in again, so soon I will set sail.