Happy holidays! 10 years ago today, Aldebaran won the Parade of Lights in surprising circumstances. So fun to remember the story! And it reminds me of the power of creativity when we’re building a new & unconventional path. As we’ll be doing so soon in our next phase, Green Coco 3.0 🙂

It was December 2013 in Santa Barbara, California. The weather was turning rainy after the weekend. On a last minute whim, we decided to join the Parade of Lights, with Aldebaran our 42 foot trimaran as the contender.

We told our friends: “Let’s throw a party! Who can bring lights, speakers, anything??”

We had a chaotic potluck meeting on Thursday. By the end, one idea stuck: let’s play James Brown Funky Soul Christmas on the mainsail. Sounded fun. No time to think too much, the parade was in 3 days!

10am on Sunday, we unloaded Dobb’s van with boxes of fancy lights. He’s our lighting guru. Soon after, a speaker, generator, fog machine were dropped off at the dock. “Where are we going to put all this stuff?”

2pm on Sunday, my friend Stubbs showed up, and asked, “Yo. What needs to happen?” I scanned the mess on deck: a flurry of people, zip-ties, lights being mounted every which way.

Since Stubbs is a sailor and DIY handyman, I gave him our toughest job: “Hey man, can you rig this crate on the lifeline? I’m going you put my laptop on there, with a projector too, powered on this extension cord.” Stubbs looked at the lifeline. “You’re going to hang all the stuff over the edge, over the ocean, as we sail around??” I nodded. Stubbs laughed. “Okay man. I’ll see what I can do.”

4pm on Sunday, we were about to cast the lines. A Belgian couchsurfer guy asked, “Hey can I come too?” I shrugged and said, “Well, we only have 21 lifejackets aboard. Need one for each person aboard. Find yourself a lifejacket and you’re in.” The Belgian begged around the dock. He jumped on board.

5:30pm, we were motoring in a line slow-moving boats. Our dance party was in full swing. James Brown was jamming! We were streaming the youtube video with a cel phone connection via a laptop, which was projected on the double-reefed mainsail. Tenuous at best.

6pm, with 20+ people on deck, I was struggling to see where to go. As darkness fell, it just got harder. Red and green navigation lights were drowned in the glare of dozens of brightly lit boats — sailboats, powerboats, kayaks, paddle boards — all contesting for different prizes of the Parade. I just managed to slowly motor forward and keep from slamming into the next boat.

6:30pm , a little dinghy with enthusiastic parade watchers drives by, cheering at us. We yell at them: “Hey! What do we look like? We don’t even know!” The dinghy driver yells back. “Oh man! The 60s had nothing on you guys.”

I grin at Dobbs. “Maybe we have something here,” he says with a laugh.

7pm, we motored under the judge’s stand at the Stearn’s Wharf. “This is the crux,” I thought, “hopefully the streaming keeps working, James Brown keeps playing!” Our deck party was wild. Stubbs was halfway up the mast waving a Santa hat. Sabby was pumping everyone’s dance moves. The Belgian did the worm across the deck (yes, the slanted, gritty, curved deck of Aldebaran). Captain K himself managed a partial hand stand. The crowd on the Wharf was going nuts. We were having a ball.

8:30pm. Aldebaran is announced winner of the sailboat division. And Grand Prize winner! We are showered with money and prizes. “What, they are giving us money?” Sabby asked in shock. We didn’t even know what was at stake.

Later, we heard someone balked. “Can those guys even win the Santa Barbara Harbor parade, if they don’t have a slip in the Santa Barbara harbor?” Apparently we could.

So yes! We had a heap of fun AND won Grand Prize. A good question is, did we win BECAUSE we had a heap of fun? And we didn’t take ourselves seriously, didn’t know what was at stake, and just tried to make the coolest thing possible?

This is a good lesson for our next big transition. At the time of the 2013 Parade of Lights, we were building our community. Building our cooperative, which would launch Green Coconut Run the following year. Doing daysails, weekend trips, Channel Islands trips, Ranch trips, Parades, whatever it took…!

Now 10 years later, we are launching Green Coco 3.0. A global boat-schooling expedition on a 60ft catamaran. We’re reviewing applicant-captains to expand Green Coco and continue running co-op trips in French Polynesia. Once again, we’re building a community. It’s a time of risk and opportunity. And fun!

The Parade of Lights reminds us: don’t take ourselves seriously, be creative, stay unattached to the monetary gain, and let’s do this! Most importantly, you can never go wrong with James Brown Funky Soul Christmas.

Happy Holidays and Happy Sailing!