hello goodbye

One of the fabulous things about boat kids is how quickly they make new friends. There is no pretense, no segregating by age or gender, no time for hazing. If there's a kid on the dock, near the dock, approaching the dock -- they are a friend within minutes.

That's the way it was with Zach and H&A, two amazingly sweet girls who arrived in our little creek last summer. Instant friends. It didn't matter that they were older or girls or came from a totally different part of the country and different sort of life. Instant karma.

Then fall came. And the reality that all boat kids face loomed. It was time to say goodbye. H&A's parents had finished all of the work their boat needed, they packed up all of their provisions, and they were ready to cast off for the islands.

When we said goodbye that day last year, I stood in our cockpit and took photos. Zach hid under the settee table and sobbed, refusing to come out and wave goodbye. He spent the rest of that day something like this.

It's something our little tribe of boat families talks about often. How do we reconcile the excitement and privilege of this wandering lifestyle with the difficulty of vagabond friendships? I don't have an answer to that.

I guess it's something that gets easier with practice. The girls came back this summer, sailing right back into our creek. The boy was overjoyed but I was dreading in the pit of my stomach what was to come. They were done with thier adventures and were going back home, across the country, selling their boat, ending this chapter. We talked about it, explained, planned, talked some more and when the day came to say goodbye again it went a little smoother. While the girls packed the family car to head back where they came from, Zach spent that morning making little surprises for them.

And he managed to come out from under the table, give the little gifts, have a last play, and even pose for a photo or two.

I know for the goodbyes my husband and I have had in our cruising life, we always take faith in the fact that the world is round and the wind is always blowing somewhere, so our old friends will somehow drift back to us. And new friends are always just over the horizon. I hope Z starts to feel this too.