We didn’t come to Annapolis to be social, I swear, though in hindsight I’m not sure why we hadn’t realized it. We came for Cruisers University, to help out at a couple of booths, and to see if we could find those last pieces of gear we’re searching for. We did all of that. And between seeing friends, having Bee pop in for a night aboard, meeting people who swear by FastSeas or love listening to the podcast, working at The Boat Galley booth or the Good Old Boat booth, eating dinner at restaurants (outside) or at the Good Old Boat house, having friends over for dinner on Calypso, we’ve not had a quiet, just-the-two-of-us day/evening since October 7. It’s October 24. That’s a lot of people time!

(I didn’t take nearly enough photos.)

I’ve missed this social aspect of cruising. It’s hard during COVID to extend casual invitations the way we usually do. For one, I haven't yet figured out how to ask the question about vaccination without it being awkward (and we’re not having people down below on Calypso who have not been vaccinated.) For another, we’re not really completely set up in our usual fashion. The table, borrowed from Mischief, is about 2 inches too high for comfortable eating. One of our large plates broke in the sink about a month ago, leaving us with only 3 dinner plates (but plenty of smaller ones). For some reason I brought 3 tablecloths (none of which fit on the table) and only 2 cloth napkins, so we’re reduced to using paper towels as napkins.

Still, though. The biggest issue though, for me, has been an unexpected (and largely undetected) worry about what people will think. Is it small boat anxiety? Big boat envy? No idea. I started to realize something was off when I’d apologize ahead of time for the boat. “It’s the smallest boat around,” I’d say. “She looks good from a distance.”

It was only after extending invitations to friends who are at least passingly familiar with small boat life and having them come over for fantastically wonderful evenings that I realized it’s not about the size of the boat. It’s about the friendship and companionship. The conversations and the laughter. This realization was cemented when an off-the-cuff invite for sundowners to new-this-season cruising friends was accepted with a resounding “YES!” These friends have a 54 foot boat. They oohed and ahhed at our boat, sat in our cozy cockpit and marveled at our little twinkle lights, and all of us enjoyed the evening every bit as much as the one we shared in their cockpit in Block Island.

Yes, grabbing the extra plates and cloth napkins from storage is on my list for the winter. But remembering that our boat is a happy place to socialize, for everyone, is on my list for general cruising.

When are you coming over?