As I sat at my desk typing these words I heard a subtle noise over my shoulder. My desk sits near the French doors in the spare room of our 900 square foot home. I looked over my shoulder and my eyes passed over the worn wood that is our deck. I glanced farther to my left to see the tail of a squirrel as he sat on the edge of a flowerpot that holds the gardenia plant I bought so my husband could enjoy the fragrance. The squirrel was busy hiding a nut in preparation for winter.

The seasons are changing and the squirrels activity confirms this. It is October yet it is predicted to be 90 degrees today. Good for us as we just purchased our first sailboat and we are heading to the river!   We are new to the sailing world thanks to meeting new friends in the most unexpected place. Enter, Bill and Lorna.

We went to the local Big 5 store about a year ago to look for a new ice chest. As we do with everything we look and ponder and look and ponder. This time as we were looking at the various ice chests we both noticed a man walk by a couple of times watching us. We glanced at each other acknowledging that we both noticed him. Then we heard, “hi, I hope you don’t mind the intrusion but my wife and I just bought an ice chest not to long ago and this is the one we like.” The conversation went on between the men and as I stood by I noticed a tall attractive blonde woman enter the area.   I could tell by the way she jumped into the conversation and soon drew me into a “girl talk” conversation that she was the type that “knows no strangers.” It turns out the man, “Bill”, was her husband and he also “knows no strangers.” And…of coarse, my husband “knows no strangers” so it was quite the scene.

We exchanged contact information and when Bill asked my husband if we liked to sail he replied, “we don’t know, we’ve never been.” To that Bill said, “if  you ever want to go to just give us a call.” We walked out of that store without an ice chest that day, but we had two new friends.

When we got home the conversation went like this: My husband:   “Wow, we should call them and set up a day to go sailing.” Me.   “Wait! What? We don’t even know them!”   You see, that is the distinct difference between someone “who knows no strangers” and “someone who knows a lot of strangers.”   The conversation went back and forth for a bit and then I realized that I am married to a man that has so many wonderful people in his life, people who he has met at the most random places and times in his life that I decided to “do it afraid” and go for it. So, we called them and set up a sailing date and the day ended up being amazing.

A year later, we have our own sailboat, docked at the same harbor as our friends Bill and Lorna.

So, this is how this new chapter in our lives started. A chance meeting with two great people who I anticipate we will remain friends with for a long time to come. Since moving our boat to this harbor we continue to meet fabulous people.

I feel all kinds of adventures and experiences are in our future. I don’t know what they will be or how they will play out but I for one have decided to go for it, to enjoy the challenges and the adventures.   So this section of my blog will be dedicated to our “sailing adventures,” the good, the bad, the ugly and hopefully mostly the beautiful. I invite you to stay tuned and if you are a sailor reading this…please chime in.