Oh, The People You’ll Meet

We don’t usually post more than once per stop, but we’re still in Wrightsville Beach. Most days, we’ve gone to the beach, which is a 5 minute dinghy ride and a short walk from the anchorage. The beach is clean and the water is warm but refreshing. There are always waves for bodyboarding and a breeze that’s ideal for long walks.

Yesterday we visited nearby Wilmington on the Cape Fear River. It’s a small city with an historical downtown and a river walk.

Oh, the people you’ll meet. One day after the beach, we stopped in a local bar and met Garrison and Kayle, a young couple dreaming of a sailing cruise to Greece. After talking for an hour, it felt like we among family.

The next day,  a motorboat approached Fregata at anchor. Rather than pirates coming to pillage our vessel, David and Tom came to learn about Amel 50s. Of course we were glad to show them our boat. In addition to persistently offering us use of their car, beach gear, etc, Tom and his wife Hope asked us to join them and their family at the Carolina Yacht Club, one of the oldest in the country, founded in 1853. There’s a big communal kitchen where members prepare meals (with staff to clean up afterwards!). Tom and his wife graciously hosted us for a home-cooked dinner of fresh mahi-mahi their son Powell had just caught during a fishing trip off of the Outer Banks. They are a kind, generous and fun family we thoroughly enjoyed getting to know and whom we hope to see again, aboard Fregata or back in Switzerland.

After spending a few days at Seapath Yacht Club, we bid farewell to Justin and Phil, the nicest dockmasters we’ve met so far, and who told us we were good “neighbors”.

Back at anchor, John, who keeps an Amel Super Maramu in Wrightsville Beach, and who heard we were here, drove his skiff over to our anchorage and came aboard for a chat. He’s from Brazil and has made Wrightsville Beach is home. The Amel owners’ community is tight and we always share tips and tricks.

Later, after a last stop at the beach, we dinghied over to a French-registered sailboat anchored near us. A young couple from Brittany, along with their 9 year-old daughter had sailed across the Atlantic to Martinique and were working their way up the coast before heading back across the ocean.

These encounters sometimes turn into lifetime friendships and sometimes they are just passing moments, but they’re always enriching and a big part of the attraction of cruising. Frankly, to really get to know a place, besides reading, visiting, and museums, one has to meet the people who live there. The divisiveness and hatred that’s rampant in our world wouldn’t exist if people would just get to know each other as individuals rather than stereotyped groups. We have come to love this part of the country, and in all honesty, were also guitly of Yankee stereotypes about the South before we came and got to know it.

This morning, we push on up to Cape Lookout, North Carolina where we’ll spend a few days, followed by the town of Beaufort. There we’ll wait for the right weather window and moon phase for rounding North Carolina’s Outer Banks, a.k.a. “the Graveyard of the Atlantic”. Stay tuned!