Boating is really a small world

Last week while sailing down to the Vineyard another boat called us and we began a conversation that led to mutual friendship. Seems that there in Buzzard's Bay and a region far removed we found a couple who lived less than a mile from where we used to live. Turns out they keep their boat in the same marina we used to keep our boats in and they know other people from the marina that we know.

This isn't the first time we've run into people who know other people we know.

But tonight I was searching the USCG Vessel Documentation website to see if our previous boat name change documentation had been processed. Because on the Marinetraffic.com website it still reports our old boat under the name Amekaya. The buyers told us they were changing the name to Papagayo. Turns out there is a boat on the mooring next to us named Papagayo. But it was a fairly big Beneteau and of course our 380 was an Island Packet.

While looking through the listings that came up for Papagayo I came across one that had as a former name "Joss." Joss was the name of a Beneteau 50 just down the dock from us in Herrington Harbour, Deale, Md. that belonged to a friend of ours who was selling his boat at the same time we were selling our 380. He also was very interested in buying our boat once he sold his.

Well fast forward. We sold our boat before he sold his and he didn't get to buy our boat.

So I looked at the information in the listing and the boat on the mooring next to us had the same hailing port as the one listed for the former Joss. This evening when the owners returned I went over and confirmed it is the same boat.

Here we are hundreds of miles away and we through chance end up on a mooring next to a boat that we lived almost next door to for a couple years. We knew the boat having seen it many times, had been in it and the biggest coincidence is that the buyer's of Joss and our boat both renamed their boats the same name.

What a small world. The former Joss and the former Amekaya that once lived on the same dock are now Papagayo.