Welcome Family and Friends, Follow along!

Sailors can be interesting people. I went to Enterprise Car rental to pick up a car for my trip to Raleigh today. I had to return to the marina to collect Glenda and her things, so I volunteered to transport a couple that had been in the process of returning their car and going back to their boat in the same marina.  They happened to be a German couple who had extensive cruising experience. I would guess that they would be approximately my age, and they indicated they had accumulated 30 to 40 years of cruising experience. When younger they said that they kept their children engaged by sailing to a nearby location with a playground, and this was their secret to successful cruising with a family. In the recent past they had cruised Alaska, passed through central America, and as Germans were quite experienced with the nearby North Sea. Their current destination was to visit friends on the James River and the Chesapeake Bay.  So it appears that we were headed the same way since that is my eventual destination. Their sailboat was French built, aluminum hulled, and probably at least 50 to 60 feet in length. Their previous boat had been a Hallberg Rassy sailboat, but when it came time to replace it, they felt like the standards have been lost by the manufacturer in order to compete with the more inexpensive offerings in the marketplace. As they put it, they didn’t want a boat where you can see through the glass. (fiber glass)

When I asked them about their experience with heavy weather in the North Sea, their answer was that the weather was fairly predictable in that area. This allowed them to avoid the worst of it.  It is a shame that I couldn’t have spent more time asking about their experiences, as I’m sure I would have learned a great deal. These chance encounters are an important part of the coastal cruising which I am enjoying at this time. Meeting new people and learning of their life, their choices, and their opinions really expand my horizons and and provide a better understanding of this world. I have been able to have similar chance encounters over the last couple of months and it  has enriched my life. This has become one of my favorite joys of cruising.