Bequia Part II – Hello and Goodbye

The second reason that Bequia stands out so much in our minds and hearts is that this is where we reunited with but also said our final goodbyes to several of our good boat buddies.

Grenada wasn’t that far behind us, only a couple of weeks or so.  We had spent five whole months there getting to know many other boating families.  One of these families the kids were particularly close to – “Higgins”.  You have met them before in previous blogs.  Milly was Millie’s English twin, born only three months apart.  Together they were affectionately known around the cruising community as ‘The Millies’ and later, in the production Alice in Wonderland, as Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  They were inseparable.

Milly had a brother named Ollie who Nathan also clicked with right away.  They were tight as thieves, chit chatting about various things, enjoying Pokemon and Terreria together and doing other nine year old boy stuff.  We were all surprised and flattered when we found out that Ollie’s birthday wish was to have a sleep over on Trismic with Nathan.  How sweet.  So, Nathan had his first ever sleep over, onboard with his buddy Ollie (of course it wasn’t long before “The Millies” had to have their first ever sleep over, also aboard Trismic).  The best part was that Neil and I (and the kids) also got along well with both parents and their eldest son Will.  It isn’t often that everybody in the families click so well (although I have to say that in the cruising community it happens fairly regularly)!

Anyway, you get the idea, it was five months of full on fun for the Higgins/Trismic crew.  By December it was time to leave Grenada but Higgins had some boat work to do so we took off before them knowing we could catch up eventually.  Well, Bequia was the place we finally caught up.  The kids (and Neil and I) had been watching every boat that entered the bay – could that be Higgins?!!  It was a happy reunion when we finally heard their voices on the VHF radio.  The sad part was that it only lasted about a week or so because they had to get to Antigua by December 21 to catch a flight home for Christmas.  So, not knowing if we would ever catch up again, we had to say goodbye.  It was so sad to see the kids saying goodbye to such close friends who live half the world away, not knowing if that was the last time they would ever see them.  Until today, we have not caught up, they are always a few islands ahead, but I have a feeling our paths will cross again somewhere, someday.

Also in Bequia, we ran into another kid boat, Neverland, who we only met briefly in Grenada.  They were new to living aboard as well so it was really fun to get to know them and share funny stories about trying to figure out how to exist on a boat.  They also left before us but we knew we could catch up to  them in Martinique.

So, one of the really tough things about cruising is that everyone is always moving around on their own schedule so you have to constantly say goodbye to people.  The flip side, though, is that every time a boat family leaves, another one shows up.  Luckily this was the cast in Bequia.  I’m pretty sure it was the same day or the day after Higgins and Neverland left, we were reunited with two other kid boats from Grenada, Keltia and Mango.  Also, right around that time we met a new kid boat, Flip Flops.   All are super fun families and provided a much needed distraction from our missing the friends who had just left.  We managed to keep up with this new group of families for a while, you’ll probably hear more about them in future posts.

For every goodbye there is a hello and for every hello there is a goodbye.    Sometimes it happens so fast we don’t even know what hit us and sometimes, if our schedules jive, we get to spend several weeks together discovering new and interesting places.  Every new family brings a new and interesting experience and we learn so much from each and every boat we meet.  We are thankful for those we have met and we look forward to meeting many other wonderful cruising families along the way.

The boys fishing (Trismic, Higgins and Neverland).  The girls are off somewhere petting kittens and the parents are having a drink at the beach bar and catching up on internet.