One of the best parts of cruising is all of the friends that we meet along the way. We meet; we exchange "business" cards; we split up; we get back together. The cycle repeats. Cruising south this fall we've had fun meeting up with some of those aforementioned cruisers who are not coming out again this year - see blog entry "Was it something we said?"

In Annapolis, we met up with Nile and Linda from Manana and Dan and Dawn from Gertie. We also ran into Dave and Sue from Sans Cles at the boatshow.

After moving pretty quickly down the ICW through the Alligator and Pungo Rivers, we went up the Neuse River to New Bern, North Carolina. The town is a little off of the ICW (16 miles) so most of the cruisers stay away. This year we took the time to make the "detour" and we were not disappointed! We just enjoyed a wonderful weekend with some of our cruising friends from last year - who also aren't coming out again this year - Sandy and Bill from Hot Chocolate and Bev and Arnie from Scandia. They've shown us the town, had us over for a delicious meal, and introduced us to their fellow cruising friends, shared a potluck supper at their sailing club and generally treated us like royalty. New Bern is a special place and these are special friends. Looks like we will be making the "detour" on our trip north in the spring!

We will miss our cruising friends that aren't joining us this year, that's for sure. But there are other cruisers that we met last year that we will be connecting with shortly, some of whom are either a day or two ahead of us or behind us. That is what makes cruising so much fun - you just never know what "friend" is waiting for you in the next anchorage!!!