New friends, old friends...

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With the past weeks spent here in the Keys with the kids, I felt like writing a post about friendship while sailing. I'm thinking about that today because a really good friend of mine was supposed to come and visit with her son, and stay on the boat with us. It would have been the best spring break ever!! Bad timing; she started having fever 3 days before flying, and had to cancel everything. The doctor thought it was Influenza, which is a virus that 1) sucks, and 2) is highly contageous. None of us had been vaccinated this year (no reason for that!), and we're getting ready to cross to the Bahamas, so catching the flu would have been pretty bad. Anyway, it made me really sad and felt homesick. I miss my friends from home...

We have been away for over 6 months now, and because of our constraints with Sam's travels, let's say that we haven't followed the typical path for sailing families. We haven't met a lot of people with kids staying in the Keys for so long, everyone was crossing to the Bahamas at the beginning of winter. We had to dock Rolianne while we were in Antarctica and while Sam is away, so here we are. I see all the post of sailing families in the Exhumas, doing bon fires on the beach with 20 kids around. Not here. Luckily for us, Romain and Julianne get along pretty well, if we forget about the typical fighting between brothers and sisters.

The good news is: we make new friends more easily when traveling! I guess we are more prone to initiate friendships when on the road (or the sea), because I can't recall meeting so many new friends at home. Even if sometimes it lasts only a week, it is so much fun to discuss and bond with other people, learning about them and exchanging opinions.

When we were docked at Seabird marina, we met a couple that lives on a catamaran with their 5 yrs-old, and she quickly became Julianne's friend. She speaks only English of course, so both Julianne and Romain are learning a lot with her! It is so great to hear the kids ask me how to say this or that. I get along well with the mom too, who is also alone with her daughter at times, while her husband works in Mexico. Play dates for all of us!!



We also met a really nice couple with a 4 yrs-old girl at the beach, and we hang out with them a lot since. They brought us snorkeling and fishing on their ponton, they came to the pool at our marina a couple of times and we went to the Seafood festival yesterday. Fun times! 


All of this to say, it is not always easy to be away from the people who know you best. I realized that after my mom and sister left. BUT, you have to make things happen and go talk to strangers! Life is full of amazing people, you just haven't met all of them yet. :)





Comments

  1. 43BlueDoorsMarch 11, 2019 at 5:59 PM

    We always were traveling slower than others following similar paths as well so it was rare to meet up again with them. It's true however that it is much easier to make new friends on the road. Happy Trails!

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