Finding Our Tribe

This past weekend was too windy to go anywhere, so we found ourselves with yet another lazy weekend. Saturday was so windy, we barely left the boat even though we were on the dock – we were getting blown off the dock so hard it was tough to get the boat in close enough to get on/off.

We had a cruisers’ party at the marina on Sunday, and we all brought something. I made cookies that I really didn’t love – between the recipe calling for more brown sugar than white sugar and our oven with its two settings of either “block of ice” or “Satan’s breath”, they were…crunchy. Two of the longer-term cruisers who are local musicians played for us all, and it was a really fun way to spend a chilly Sunday afternoon.

One of the things I find funny about cruising is how often you run into the same boats. Snooping Around had been behind us on our overnight to Charleston – I remembered seeing their name on AIS – and I’d met one of the owners of Island Dream in Southport and saw the boat again in Vero Beach.

I worried about the social aspect of cruising. I’m definitely an introvert and super awkward, and meeting people is not my strong suit. At the same time, I’m extroverted enough to need a certain level of social interaction. I’ve never been so far from family and friends for so long, and that gave me pause when we were considering doing this. But the cruising community is awesome, and we’ve met some really interesting people in our travels. I find it much easier to meet new people knowing that we all have cruising in common.

Yesterday evening, I was walking down the dock on my way to take a shower, and one of our marina neighbors asked where I was headed. Despite my insistence that a shower was more than in order, apparently that was the wrong answer, and the right answer was “I’m coming aboard to drink rum, and then we’re heading into town to get ice cream.” We had a super fun evening hanging out, and the longer we do this, the more I’m realizing that our tribe is out here.