What's in a name: Mabu' Hay

When we first got the boat, we started thinking of new names for it. I couldn't even remember if the boat was called Habu May or Mabu Hay because it meant nothing to us. We ran through all kinds of allusions to electricity and batteries, AC/DC being our favorite.

Being us, we hadn't gotten around to renaming and re-christening it when we had a break-down that lead to the following:

We were out in Blindleia, a beautiful stretch between Kristiansand and Lillesand with our good friends Vaibhav and Sona. It was our first season with the boat and Reidar had not yet electrified it. We were running on a motor that was at the end of its life, and poor Vaibhav and Sona had been unwittingly held hostage. We lost power and hoped that giving the motor a rest for half an hour might revive it. Not so.

Reidar's brother Rune lives in Lillesand so we called him to ask for a tow. He came in his boat with his brother-in-law, Mike who is originally from the Philippines. It was a great relief to see them speeding toward us.

As they approached us, Mike started shouting, "Mabu Hay! Mabu Hay!" "Do you know it?!" I asked. "Yes," her replied. "It means "Welcome" in the Filipino language!" In that instant, we fell in love with the name and decided to keep it.

I knew it was the right choice when I started Googling, and was sent to this definition in Wikipedia: 

Mabuhay is a Filipino greeting, usually expressed as Mabuhay!, which literally means "to live". The term is also occasionally used for toasts during celebrations to mean "cheers". It is similar to the Hawaiian expression "aloha".It is used in the local hospitality industry to welcome guests, a practice rooted in a 1993 campaign launched by restaurateur Rod Ongpauco to more uniquely welcome foreign visitors to the Philippines.

Welcome is good, but "to live" and "cheers" are perfect for us. It got even better when I discovered that there is a Mabuhay song. 

So, there will be no renaming our boat. We are embracing Mabu' Hay!

(We really do need to replace "Solvik" under the name though. We can't decide between Grimstad, Kristiansand or Hovden. I am pulling for Hovden. Fewer letters. Much more original.)


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