Adios, Amigos

No more early morning baby play dates. Oh, and Vlad can sleep through anything!

We got back from our trip to the States and were greeted by a very quiet marina. Of course, some of our friends are still here, but most have ventured out to various far-flung locales north, south and west. And I have to say I'm feeling a little lonely.

It's funny because we didn't start out on this journey with the purpose of socializing. Our reasoning revolved around a bit of adventure and the chance to spend time together and to explore new places. And though we've had a ton of fun with taxi drivers, shop owners, locals, people from Europe and New Zealand and Canada, almost all of them were fleeting friends. Either we left for new horizons or they did, and even though we are in contact with some of them, email just isn't a substitute for face to face communication. Occasionally, however, we've traveled with a boat or two for quite a long distance. We met our friends Jess and James on the Caribbean side of Mexico and traversed quite a ways together, both distance wise and in the major life events category. They came to our wedding, and we had babies around the same time. But about four weeks ago, they left on a Pacific crossing, and we took a different turn.

Also, up until a few weeks ago, there were FIVE boat babies (and their support staff as my sister describes us) in Banderas Bay, which is a whole lot of baby, and it was incredibly neat to watch all the little ones getting plenty of bonding time. Now, however, Jari is the only one whose crying reverberates across the docks, and it's up to us to entertain him, an increasingly daunting task.

That's a lot of boat babies! Photo credit: James on Adamastor

On a somewhat tangential note, a big congratulations to Adamastor and our friends on Sea Raven for their Pacific crossing! Both boats are nestled in the Marquesas, hopefully stuffing themselves on French cheeses. You deserve it. In some ways, I'm kind of glad we decided to forgo the Pacific this year. The trade winds didn't look super great, and knowing our usual quick pace of 2 miles an hour, I could just see us having a six-week crossing and me apologizing to Vlad over our last can of Costco chicken. Though maybe all the brie would have made up for it. Tough to tell.