SEQUIM — A Sequim couple said their tradition of decking their boat and dock in lights has come to an end.
Retired educators Bob and Kelly Macaulay opted to retire their 20-plus-year tradition this year along East Sequim Bay Road after they sold their sailboat.
“I knew I’d eventually have to stop,” Bob Macaulay said.
The couple moved to Sequim from Alaska and started putting up red lights on their boat’s 50-foot mast and for 130-plus feet along their dock. They also decorate their home and beach hut.
But due to health reasons, the couple sold their boat this year.
“I didn’t feel comfortable stringing lights out to the bay and stopping,” Bob Macaulay said.
“I could do the dock, but then people will ask, ‘Where’s the tree?’”
The Macaulays had boat since 1991 before they sold it this fall.
“It hurts, but it’s reality,” Bob Macaulay said. “We had to sell the boat because of balance and age and strength.”
Their lights would typically be on from Dec. 1-31.
While the lights were a tradition, Bob Macaulay said he wasn’t sure how much they meant to others until he went on a hike where he met another couple.
They told him they go out at night to look out on the bay, and they told him they looked forward to Dec. 1, when his lights get switched on.
“Maybe a lot of people looked at these lights and didn’t know who did them,” Bob Macaulay said.
One year, he tried to change the lights to green, and he jumped in his car, drove to the other side of Sequim Bay and discovered green didn’t show up well.
“I took down the green and went back to red,” Bob Macaulay said.
Christmas will be different this year for the Macaulays, Bob said, but in reflection, he said he feels it emphasizes the importance of family.
He said it was a blessing to see his son Whitney, a Sequim High graduate, at Thanksgiving, and he hopes those who remember their boat and dock lights “appreciate it as much as we have.”
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
