I welcome a friend on board as a cruising companion (and more) and am glad I did.

If you’ve been reading my Great Loop blog (which is behind yet again), you know that I spent some time buddy boating with my friend Jason in the big Ocean Yachts boat he lives aboard in Washington DC.

Jason and I met on Mastodon — my replacement for what I now call “The Dead Bird Site” (Twitter) — earlier this year. We have lots of mutual interests and seem to be on the same page about so many things. I think we might have been equally excited to actually meet up in person. We did that in October when I cruised down Chesapeake Bay from the Annapolis area (where I picked up my boat after its summer vacation) and he took his boat down to the mouth of the Potomac River. We cruised back up the river together, in our separate boats, with many stops along the way. It was a great week of getting to know each other, as was the subsequent days I spent at the marina where he lives.

My boat (the red one) rafted to Jason’s boat at an anchorage during our Potomac River cruise. If he does start cruising full time, he’d likely downsize. His boat is very comfortable, but its size makes it impractical for a cruising lifestyle.

It seemed like a good idea for him to try joining me for a while on my much smaller boat while I continued cruising down to Florida for the winter. He works from home — his boat — and can work from pretty much anywhere, as long as he has an Internet connection. Since I’m cruising down the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) and am usually pretty close to various coastal communities and cities, Internet access is nearly always available via cell phone. He’s been thinking about casting off from the Wharf and starting a cruising lifestyle and I would give him the opportunity to see if it was feasible. Meanwhile, I’d get an experienced boater to share my travel costs and give me companionship while I explore places along the way.

It was a win-win proposition.

I left his marina after just five nights — mostly because it’s crazy expensive, even after I got four free nights courtesy of Jason and a liveaboard neighbor. (Thanks again, Chris!) I made my way back down the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay and started south along the ICW. Jason had a conference to attend in Miami and other things to take care of before leaving his boat for what might be months.

We made arrangements to meet at Washington, NC, a town at the source end of the Pamlico River that I’d been wanting to check out anyway. I parked at the excellent town dock and spent two days cleaning and prepping my boat for company. Jason arrived on November 4 — already nine days ago! — and moved on board.

Without boring you with details, I’ll just say that so far it’s been great. We get along remarkably well — he seems to bring out the best in me and keep me in good spirits. What’s crazy (to me) is that his presence seems to calm me even when I feel as if I’m losing my patience over something dumb. We share all the chores: cooking, cleaning up, and even taking my pups to shore for their potty visits. We go on hikes, try to fish and crab, and wander farther afield with me on my electric bike and him on his Onewheel. On most weekdays, he works at the table in my main cabin while I drive the boat to our next destination, sometimes from the command bridge and sometimes from the bench seat only a few feet away. If he has off from work on a cruising day — like he did on Friday — he drives the boat and I try to keep busy doing other things.

And yes, there’s more to our relationship than what I’m including here, but a girl has to have a few secrets, doesn’t she?

In any case, it looks like Jason will be on board until around mid December. That should take us all the way into Florida, including a stop at my Dad’s house in Fort Pierce on my way to the Keys. Then he’ll go spend the Christmas holidays with his family in Michigan and I’ll continue my travels.

Will he be back? Well, the best way to find out is to read that pesky Great Loop blog of mine. With luck, I’ll start updating it again more regularly.