Christmas On The Water: Who’s In?

Growing up in a Southern California beach town, I surfed many Christmas days if the waves cooperated. There always was that big chunk of downtime between the frenzy of opening presents in the morning and time on the couch before Christmas dinner. If the surf was good, my friends and I were out there. To us, it seemed like a perfectly normal Christmas day activity.

Remembering those often-epic December 25 surf sessions got me thinking, so yesterday I threw out a simple question on Speedonthewater.com’s Facebook Friends page:

Who’s going boating on Christmas day?

Arizona’s Lake Havasu wouldn’t be a bad place to spend Christmas day on the water. Photo courtesy/copyright Jay Nichols/Naples Image.

At the very least, I figured I’d hear from a few folks in Florida. It is, after all, the Sunshine State.

Rich Sestinii of Fort Myers said that it was in the mid-80s in his neck of the woods and that he thought “a few people will be out boating,” but I didn’t hear from anyone else in Florida. Yet I did hear from two folks in New Jersey, one in Indiana and one in Washington—threes states not generally associated with abundant opportunities for winter boating. Here’s what they had to say:

Dave Patnaude, Toms River, N.J.
“I may have a Christmas dinner guest arriving to my condo by boat! It will be 74 degrees here.”

Tim Sharkey, Brick N.J.
“I may have to rent one.” (I’m assuming the rental in question is a boat.)

Micheal Stancombe, Ind.
“We will be running our RC boats.”

Travis Lofland, Wash.
“Next year you can come out Dungy crabbing with me! Now there’s a Christmas boating story for you!”

Texas-based Kenny Mungle and Lee Lockwood, Gone Again partners in crime, bantered back and forth but never committed to hitting the water.

“We may be boating tomorrow?” said Mungle.

“Dingy?” said Lockwood. “What did you call me, Mungle?”

“We can go boating in the dinghy,” Mungle responded.

For the record, the weather in the San Francisco Bay area—my home—is predicted to be cold and rainy through Sunday. The closest I will get to the water is writing this piece for speedonthewater.

Whether this day finds you on or off the water, Merry Christmas