I'm finding out that another important part of the cruising life involves Sundowners. While this was not a concept that Captain Ken and I were personally familiar with, I had heard cruising buddies who spent time in the Bahamas or Caribbean talk (very) fondly about getting together with cruisers from neighboring boats at the end of the day to watch the sun set, have cocktails and then go back to their own respective boats for dinner. In our prior cruising experience, either we were sailing with friends on our boat, or if we were sailing in tandem with other friends, invariably, they would come to Moonbeam for cocktails and dinner.

So, now we are in the world of Sundowners. Two days ago, Caroline and Bill from a lovely catamaran named Juffa, invited everyone to their boat: "bring yourselves, whatever you like to drink, and some food to share". It was most interesting to see the variety of hors d'oeuvres that people were able to whip up and bring, especially considering that the boats were under sail for most of the day, and there was no running out to Publix or the A & P to buy ingredients. After partaking of the lovely spread, we had no need for dinner. Ann had marinated some steak earlier in the day in anticipation of making a stir-fry, but it remained in the fridge.

Captain Ken, not to be outdone in the social entertainment world, put out the invite yesterday when we arrived in Margaret Bay: Sundowners on Moonbeam. The pic of the day is of many of the guys on the 'back porch" of Moonbeam. (You won't be surprised to read that the men hung out together talking 'man talk' while we women sat together in the cockpit talking about our stuff.)

My one concern about having this get-together related to trash. This is always an issue in long distance crusing. A boat can only store but so much trash, so we are always mindful of this. Before leaving port, we discard as much packaging as we can, and try hard to minimize plastic and other non bio-degradable waste. As it turned out, cruisers are totally respectful of this issue. They all took their trash back to their own boats. After the last guests left, there was no evidence that we had just entertained 24 guests on the boat.

Once again, no dinner was necessary. Ann's marinating steak keeps marinating.