Hellos and Goodbyes

As I write this, I have just returned from a lovely evening spent with friends. Tonight was the night to meet a group of our cruising friends to watch the sunset from the top of the Olandra Hotel, share some drinks and conversation, meet a few folks we didn’t know yet and say goodbye to Pamela.
Tomorrow morning…early…Pamela and her friend, Joanne, will be leaving Barra De Navidad for the last time. She is off to Zihuatenejo for a bit and then will be going south as far as Peru before she crosses the Pacific on her way to Australia and beyond. It was a melancholy evening.
This is the dilemma that cruisers have. When we meet, we form very close bonds in a short period of time. All of us have experienced the same difficulties with snotty passages, difficult anchoring, scary entrances into unknown ports and situations the average landlubber cannot even perceive. When we get together and reminisce over what the weather was like two days ago or is predicted to be two days hence, we all know what that means in terms of our enjoyment of the journey not to mention our personal survival. For a while, everyone is going the same general direction and we expect to see each other in future anchorages or ports. Some move faster, others slower each according to their own personal timetable. Then…as fate would have it…someone decides that it is their dream to see another part of the world and that means saying goodbye.
These hellos and goodbyes are much more intense than the ones we shared in the land based world. We would get together with a friend for drinks or dinner, spend an evening catching up with what has been happening in each other’s life and end the evening with a hug or kiss on the cheek and drive home to prepare for another day at the office. We knew it would be another six months before we would see each other again but were confident that we would, indeed, see the other person again.
When cruising, saying goodbye, much too often, really means “goodbye”. It means “I wonder if we’ll ever see each other again.” It means “sail safely, stay in touch and please don’t forget me.” Some of us go east. Some go west. Some stay in one area the whole time they are cruising. There are always new and wonderful people to meet and adventures to be had but at the end of it all, there is always that darn goodbye lurking in the background.
This year we will be losing several of the closest “hangin’ out with” friends we have made. Pamela is going south and then west. Angus & Rolande have decided to head for the South Pacific in March. This is Bonnie’s last season and next year she & Jim will be back on a ranch again with their cattle and horses. I’m sure that as the season moves on we’ll find more who have decided to reach out for new horizons. And just when I begin to feel exceptionally melancholy and lonely, a new boat pulls in next to us and we discover more wonderful people who are living the adventure and having the time of their lives doing it.