By Jennifer

It’s great to be back on the blog after an extended hiatus due to the saltwater air casting voodoo spells on my laptop. But, that’s just one piece of several electronic gadgets that is battling the natural elements here and hopefully my lagging laptop will hold on over the remaining weeks.

We’ve met some great people along the way. Some of our friends back home imagined when we announced our trip that we would be “out in the middle of the ocean” by ourselves. That couldn’t be farther from the truth (well except for that first 12-hour Gulf Stream crossing…).

Here are some of the friends we have met and intend to keep:

Meet Jennings and Patty on s/v Veritas from Virginia — the Chesapeake Bay area. Jennings is a professional musician (we have two of his cds now). He plays acoustic guitar and is an excellent vocalist. He shared his musical talents at several of the anchorages throughout the Exumas all the way down to George Town. Jennings also is a microbrewer and can easily point out good microbrewery stops in several states between Florida and Illinois. Patty is awesome at making jewelry (made a pair for Madeline), a sophisticated wine connoisseur, diligent sea bean collector, and fabulous hostess and cook (thank you for the evenings spent on Veritas eating homemade pizza, popcorn and mahi mahi). Oh, how could I forget the big screen tv on Veritas where we all huddled around watching “Captain Ron.”

Meet Tim and Diane on s/v Magic also hailing from the Chesapeake Bay area. Magic and Veritas are close friends and decided to cruise the Bahamas celebrating their early retirements. Tim is a former navy and American Airlines pilot. He is your righthand man and commands a wealth of knowledge on most everything except “Awesome 80s Trivia.” Diane is a nurse and an incredible go-getter who can find humor in all things. Good thing because nothing can test you or your boat more than sailing through the vast wilderness of the Bahamas and watching your boat break piece by piece. She also picked up the Bahamian craft of creating conch horns — two of which she gave to Madeline and Zach. The kids haven’t been the same since. We were truly touched. (Look for these conch horns in a future blog post).

Magic and Veritas are making their way back to Florida now, but before we said our goodbyes, after traveling down the Exuma Islands chain together, we assured them it would not be the last time they would see the Taylors from Chicago. We hope to catch up with them in the Chesapeake before we head home.