Buddy boating, friendship and openness

Here we are at the end of the first installment of our journey, we know that we will stay in New Zealand for some time. The pace of life and habits will change too. It's time for assesments, I am preparing a post about our favorite places in the South Pacific, our work projects on the boat and I have made a note of household tips ...

Since we were approaching the end of the trip, I wanted to write about the "buddy boating". For those who read the blog regularly, you already know what name will be attached to this post, but it seems important to add the list of benefits.

Little flashback, in April 2011, anchored Atuona, Hiva Oa, we meet Jared and Christine Kibele at a potluck. It was right after a boat had run into our windvane, we were so self absorbed that we had not seen Architeuthis, a Mariner of 31 feet a little sister of Shalimar arrive in the bay. They had noticed and asked who owned the other sister ship and we got acquainted. This may seem a bit strange to start a friendship on a detail like this one (do you stop in the street any driver who would happen to have the same car and refer to them as "buddies of Focus"?), but note that our boats were built a few hundred copies, we run into some in California, but the opportunity to meet another one who would do the same trip seemed quite low. So it was a pretty big surprise.

Outside the boat itself, we had other things in common. Christine and I are about the same age and a little trouble staying in one place. We all lived in California (North for them, South for us). Jared and Ryan also are roughly the same age, each with a young wife :) and like to go spear fishing ... Of course we’re also very different with two Californians, a New Yorker and Parisian ... So it’s hard to say exactly why or how the friendship are born but it came about in a rather natural and easy way.

This leads me to the first positive aspect of "buddy boating" :  a real dynamic is created, an even balance. Christine and I love to move (change anchorage, to explore on land ...), see as many things as possible. She reads a lot about different places, and plans more. The men could discuss boatwork, and exchange tools and stuff. I served as interpreter when we were in French Polynesia. Jared and Christine had more knowledge than us on weather and probably also for navigation. We prepared all our itineraries or traded them ... I stored food for a regiment (our boat is bigger, we had a larger storage capacity), so we could help them out when we were in the middle of nowhere.

I am confident that our friendship has enabled us to see more things than if it were only us on our boat and them on their. Everyone had a little thing he wanted to see or do here and there. At four we have not seen four times as much (sometimes you have to make choices) but we definitely saw more. We somehow recreate a micro society where the qualities of each are for the benefit of all.

Then, it's easier to organize, as Ryan noted, without really noticing we followed a ancestral division of labor with the girls "gatherers" (to harvest fruit or get supplies in the stores) and men "hunters" (fishing). We often organized our meals together, sharing food according to what everyone had.

The exchange is an integral part of this set. Exchange of equipment, spare parts, food, information, "good plans" films, and invitations must be balanced for this to work.

When life goes well, it's a great dynamic and when life goes wrong, it makes even more sense. After our little accident and Ryan’s broken finger, Jared helped us with repairs, and anchoring the boat without a windlass (damaged), which would have been very difficult for us to do (or impossible) if we were alone. Jared thank you and sorry for your back!

What we do not realize right away is the importance that people take and how they can take root in our lives in a few months. At the same time we have probably never spent so much time and for such a long period with anyone outside of our relationship. We’re out of New Zealand since just a few weeks and we miss them already, and they do too. This is a good thing to look forward to when we return from our little break in Europe and the US. While we probably will not be in the same city we already know that we will end up seeing each other for new adventures on land this time!

And of course, we heard or saw other dynamics less attractive than ours. Between the boat that sticks to your butt and that you try desperately to leave behind or the ship with a little too nice organizer that tires you with too much enthusiasm. But we got lucky, and we’re really happy about it.

By living in our cities without moving much, we forget the value of trade and openness to strangers, it is true that there are often good childhood friends that you would not exchange for anything, but the life out of its cocoon, also has its benefits. That's how we could make a great Thanksgiving on Piko with Brittania (and family members visiting), and Architheutis and Kuheli (I never thought that so many people could fit on a boat of this size ). This also allowed us to discover some Swedish Christmas traditions with our friends Josefin and Ivan from Kuheli and play crazy games on Takalani with Stof and Sara from South Africa. And so, so much more…

In conclusion, it helps to have friends, it seems a little simplistic and not very new, but I do not lock myself in a "safe haven" at the end of the year as financial analysts say. I continue this back to basics and essential, a journey started a few years ago that began with choices as light as stopping buying clothes in large numbers or that are not adapted to our way of life for example, then continued with critical choices for food and water supplies, to end with a few thoughts on happiness, here is one: it is possible to live happily without many things and even much more than I was imagining, but not without others, and friendship is one of them.

Thank you friends from boats and everywhere.