Small world stories abound in the cruising community. Because of the transient nature of the lifestyle, we’ve often been in anchorages when a boat looking familiar sailed in … often a boat that we haven’t seen for a couple of years in far different locales. So much fun!
So imagine our surprise yesterday to return to the boat after our errands to find another boat just a slip down from us. AND not just any boat! A boat with very special sentimental value to both David and me!
Many many years ago … like maybe 20, we don’t remember exactly, before we were doing more than a bit of dreaming about going cruising “someday”, some racing friends of ours bought a “cruising boat” and kept it on Kentucky Lake. We were thrilled when they asked us to come down for a weekend.
That was the first night David & I ever spent aboard a big sailboat and it was aboard our friend’s boat, sv Kaija … which just happens to be one slip over from Winterlude at Burnt Store Marina right now!
Our friends sold the boat in 2004, and we hadn’t kept track of what happened to it after that. Then two days ago a couple bought it and sailed it here, temporarily next to us until they continue around to the boat’s more permanent home close to Vero Beach, Florida on the east coast.
What fun! The stories come back in a rush — so many times we’ve been delighted when old friends sailed into an anchorage after we hadn’t crossed paths in years! One of the funniest was in the Exumas in Warderick Wells … a catamaran came in and David said “that’s Side By Side”. We last saw sv Side by Side in Portobello, Panama, Easter weekend when we colored Easter Eggs and had an Easter Egg hunt with their two kids as well as two other boys off a 27 footer from Great Britian (with their parents … on a 27 footer…), but I digress. Anyway, turns out it WAS the same sv Side by Side, but new owners had bought the boat and were now cruising the Bahamas, but no kids. It was fun to meet them and recall the fun we had that Easter weekend in Portobello, Panama.
But it all started with an overnight on Kentucky Lake in sv Kaija when our friends invited us for the weekend. Amazing.
