Since we moved aboard Seas the Day in August, 2008, we’ve met many wonderful people. We have devoted a page in our website called “Cruiser Friends” to remember the friends we have spent time with in both the States and Bahamas. In addition, there are dozens of other cruisers we have met who we see again and again as we travel. The people who entered the Bahamas in Bimini were mostly traveling south through the Exumas and many have ended up in Georgetown. Therefore, as we enter various anchorages, we often see the same boats we saw earlier in our travels. We hear the same boat names hailed over and over on our VHF radio.
We never appreciated the importance of traveling with friends until we reached the Bahamas. The photo above is of friends we are traveling with in the Bahamas or as they are called, “Boat Buddies.” Meeting new friends has been a matter of “being at the right place at the right time.” Such was the case when we arrived in Bimini after sailing across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. We anchored the first night in Bimini on New Year’s Eve but moved into a marina the next day. At that marina we met the friends in the photo above who became our traveling companions. We had to wait for good weather to travel to our next stop, Nassau, and that gave us more time to get to know them. It was a small marina so everyone interacted.
Mark and I have traveled alone most of the time until now. In the States, that is more common than in the Bahamas. We rarely see anybody traveling alone here and there is a good reason for that. First, for safety reasons it’s always good to have buddy boats nearby when things go wrong. The bigger reason, however, is that when it comes time to explore, hike, go ashore, or snorkel, we have found the experiences are much more fun when shared. Sailing with Joanne and Mark (Avalon) and JoAnne and Bill (Ultra) has multiplied our enjoyment of this adventure many times over. We are a catamaran, a trimaran, and a trawler. Having different boats doesn’t matter as far as speed, as we never travel more than a few miles at a time.
Our group works well for a multiple of reasons. First, we have no schedule. None of us have given much thought to any specific places we want to visit and there are certainly no long term plans. We get somewhere, enjoy it, and then decide where we’ll go next. Joanne and Mark have had guests and are getting ready to go pick up another, so they have not been with us the whole way. However, when we did see them again here in Georgetown we stepped right back into our friendships. Another reason we get along well is because we have the same interests, such as snorkeling, hunting for conch and lobster, and eating good food which we make and share. While Mark and I are the least experienced sailors, it is the first trip to the Bahamas on our boats for all of us.
Besides sharing experiences, we’ve also shared provisions, tools, and most importantly, help in fixing things. We’ve had numerous meals together in each of our boats. We all love snorkeling, and in fact the four of them initiated Mark and I into this fun experience. Now we can’t get enough of it.
I’m not sure how different our experience in the Bahamas thus far would be without these particular traveling companions, but I can’t imagine it would be any better. We might have connected with another boat or two along the way, and we have met many nice cruisers who could be traveling companions, but we feel very fortunate to have been at the right place, at the right time to meet and travel with these four new friends.