To buddy boat, or not to buddy boat? It’s question many cruisers find themselves facing at some point, and for our family finding the right buddy boat took our sailing experience to a whole new level.

I remember it like it was yesterday. Sitting outside the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, poaching their WiFi in the corner of the breezeway. While I was lounging under the radar, one thing wasn’t going unnoticed; my two feral children running wild like it was their own private island. Living on a boat will do that to children. It will transform every place they step foot on into a page from Where the Wild Things Are. The moment their feet hit solid ground, the wild rumpus will commence.

I saw a gentleman take obvious note of my untamed children, with two of his own following suit.
He looked at the kids, and then back at me, and said; “Cruiser, or Tourist?”
“Cruiser..” I responded, with a hesitant smile.
He picked up one of his boys, about the age of my youngest, while the other ran amok on the
sidewalk.
“Where are you headed?”
“North,” I said.
“How long are you cruising the Bahamas?” He asked.
“Indefinitely.”

Andrew continued to interview me, eager to have found possible playmates for his kids. His wife, Sarah, returned from the store with a wagon full of groceries and drinking water. My husband, Adam, joined the group soon after and we all talked about the struggles of living on a boat with young children. Sarah and I shared stories of our breaking points, moments when it all started to boil over the pot. Each of us soaked in the validation like a dried up sponge.

The missing link when sailing with kids

If you have young kids and you’re living full time on a boat, you’ve probably felt the void that can grow like a weed when the kids go days or weeks without the company of other kids. It’s difficult to witness as a parent, and impossible to keep the guilt at bay. Being isolated with young children on a boat is the hardest part (for me) of this lifestyle. Kids have so much energy, and their need for social interaction is palpable. If there aren’t other kids around to help feed that energy vortex, they will suck their parents dry of every last drop of energy, time, and attention.

It’s a model that some families subscribe to, and I admire every ounce of them, but for us, and especially for SV Endeavor, it was not a model for happiness. We needed and wanted some semblance of community on our journey.

Finding your people

In this modern age of online social connections, it isn’t hard to find company. Noforeignland is probably the best resource for meeting other boaters, wherever you are in the world. We’ve met tons of boaters on this app, families included. And the resources and information you can gain from people by simply messaging them on the app is endless.

Testing the buddy boating waters

After discussing the possibilities created by the chance to join our boat with Andrew, Sarah and their two kids on SV Endeavor, we decided to spend some some time together. We explored Thunderball Grotto, a picturesque spot just outside our anchorage, taking turns snorkeling the underwater cave and swimming around the tiny island while one person stayed back to watch the younger kids. The benefits of buddy boating were becoming as crystal clear as the stunning waters of the Exumas.

It’s now or never

After spending half a day with the crew of SV Endeavor, it was time to make a decision. Meeting other boaters isn’t like meeting a family on the playground that you will likely see again the following week. Sailors are generally on the move, with dynamic plans revolving around weather and tides and personal schedules. We needed to decide quickly if we would merge our plans with SV Endeavor for the remainder of the season, or continue on our way alone.

Of course my husband and I had some hesitations; what if we don’t end up getting along with them and we don’t want to keep the same itinerary? Or, what if they are crazy?! But, our doubts paled in comparison to the mountain of pros that came with the arrangement; shared childcare, help homeschooling, socialization for the kids, safety in numbers during passage making, help cooking dinners, and help hunting dinners, and the list goes on and on (and on….)!

Ultimately our path was clear and we decided we were going to jump on this arrangement. Just like that, our family of 4 became a family of 8.

Exploring the landscape before buddy boating

Before we paired up with SV Endeavor, the Exumas were a perfectly rugged playground laid out before our feet. But most of the time we felt like we could only drool over it. Unlike many Bahamian sightseers, we were there to get our hands dirty and our feet wet. We didn’t want to just lay back on a beach and watch the water lap against perfectly white sheets of sand. We wanted to dive deep, literally, and hunt for lobsters, swim with sharks and eagle rays. But how, how would we do this with two small children? We would have to explore the water alone, while one of us stayed back and watched the kids.

For my husband Adam, going out into the big blue alone was no big deal. For me, I knew a big toothy grin would be lurking around every corner that I explored, waiting to terrify me with its wide white smile. Which is exactly what happened toSarah on SV Endeavor. When she finally mustered up the courage to go snorkel a reef alone, she was met with a big surprise. Luckily her shark encounter was just a Nurse-shark, but it sent her back to the boat as fast as she could swim, vowing to never snorkel alone again.

My favorite perk of buddy boating

Having the ability to explore the water with other adults was invaluable, creating opportunities that simply weren’t possible when we sailing alone.

On our way to Eluthera, we stopped in Warderick Wells for a night. All 8 of us loaded into our undersized dinghy with our snorkel gear and headed for the closest reef. We popped in the water with little time to spare and were all met with a singular view:

A fever of spotted eagle rays soared like prehistoric birds around the reef. We took turns flying with giants under the water while one of us stayed back with the kids in the dinghy. The encounter was surreal and absolutely magical in every possible way. Sharing it with friends was like adding a rainbow to the sunset. The encounter wouldn’t have been possible at all if it had just been my husband and I alone with the kids. This moment went straight into my memory bank, to be cherished forever.

The hunt is on!

The biggest benefit of buddy boating to both Adam and Andrew, without question, was fishing. Andrew and Adam both love to fish so every chance they got they were in the water diving for lobsters, spearfishing grouper, diving for conch, or throwing a line off the back of the boat for Jacks. There were times where it felt like our anchor had barely touched the sand below our boat before Andrew and Adam were in their shorts, diving with spears in hand.

Free diving down in that fishy village under the sea would sometimes bring them face to face with the ultimate predator. They were small foreigners hunting in someone else’s jungle, each one glad for the other’s company as they looked over their shoulders.

I tagged along once, spearing my own lobster and proving once again that women can do anything they set their mind to. We all ate like kings and queens that night, lobster bisque caught fresh out of the sea.

Safety in numbers

Terrifying moments are unavoidable on the water, but there’s something indescribably comforting knowing that other people are there in case it all goes wrong.

I’ll never forget watching Endeavor’s boat sail into Current Cut in Eleuthera right after their motor died. As you can imagine, the name Current Cut was not randomly assigned. It comes with a 3-4 knot current that rushes through a narrow channel slicing through the northwest side of Eleuthera’s land mass.

We went through the cut first on our catamaran, into the wind with our motors pushing us along. Endeavor followed shortly behind us, with no motor, and their sails trimmed. I wondered how their steerage would fare as they sailed straight into the wind, and I looked back and saw their jib begin to luff. To our horror their jib was flopping around helplessly just as they turned sharp, directly towards the sea wall and out of sight.

From there we knew only one of two things could happen; they could hit the sea wall just a few feet away from them, or barely miss the sea wall as their sails refilled and they tacked back off…

We turned our boat around after we saw their dilemma and waited in suspense. Would they emerge victorious? Or would we have to find out how to use our platinum towing package with Boat US in the far Bahamas? A few moments of suspense passed and we finally saw their sails emerge. Endeavor tacked out of Current Cut unscathed and we all exhaled in relief. They hailed us on the radio and relayed moments of terror and triumph as their adrenaline pumped in the aftermath.

Taking steps forward together and apart

This trip for my husband and I was over 10 years in the making. Going to the Bahamas was our first taste of the water outside the Intracoastal Waterway. We baby stepped our way to the Exumas, but we needed to lengthen our stride.

Having a buddy boat with loads of technical sailing experience and a little less reserve, helped us to take challenging steps on our own, but not alone. We started small, sailing to Eleuthera together from the Exumas, and then to the Abacos. From there we had enough confidence in ourselves to sail all the way to the Rio Dulce in Guatemala after we parted ways with SV Endeavor. It’s a gift I wouldn’t have foreseen coming from the arrangement, but it’s one that I hold much gratitude for.

Making friends for life

One thing kept coming back to me during our time with Endeavor was the feeling of making friends like we used to when we were young. I know it sounds cliche, but hear me out!

Remember when we were in school, and making friends, best friends, was a piece of cake? Childhood friendships were built from nothing but a simple question on the playground, “Want to be friends?” And the rest was history.

Now, as adults with kids, and careers, and finances, and schedules, and all the things that make life complicated, making friends is quite a different process. There is a long hazing process of events that must take place, slowly, and repeatedly, sometimes taking years, before we finally decide that we would like to be close friends with someone. But sheesh, who has time for that? In the meantime, most people chose to get to know each other on a basic, superficial level, never taking the time or effort to go any deeper.

But out here on the boat it’s like we’re all back on the playground, because ultimately we are out here to play. It doesn’t matter that we’re adults, we are in this for pretty much the same reason; because we never stopped playing and we never really stopped being kids, appreciating the joy that exploring the world with an open mind can bring us. And that scenario right there makes it a perfect recipe for deep and long lasting friendships. Just like the ones we used to make when we were younger.

Have you had a buddy boating experience that’s changed your cruising perspective or led to amazing experiences that otherwise may not have been possible? Be sure to share it and how you connected to new people in the comments, and don’t forget there are many boat groups in noforeignland that can also help you find like-minded cruisers to enjoy the sailing life with.