Reunion in the Carolinas

          We had a somewhat chance get together with old friends, the Giguere family, or at least a good portion of them.  

Tom Giguere and I met as classmates at the US Coast Guard Academy in 1977.  I was fortunate to be invited up to Sturbridge Mass, to Tom’s folks home on a number of long weekends while we were cadets. This was a family with six children so it’s hard to say whether a couple extra mouths were even noticed!  I do know it was a welcome respite from the rigors of a military academy, with some good old fashioned home cooking to boot!

Tom and I sailed on the USCG Barque EAGLE

     Tom and I have kept in touch over the years and he has been our shore contact for this extended cruise.  In the last couple of years Tom’s Mom Andrée and two of his sisters have retired/moved to North Carolina, and as luck would have it, Tom and his wife Cheryl were visiting NC just as we were getting back (from Maine) to the Willie Dawes, so we invited them for a little afternoon cruise on the ICW.  

The Giguere Clan

    The afternoon arrived but the weather didn’t cooperate (high winds) so we had our lunch aboard the boat at the marina.  Tom, Cheryl, Mom Andrée, sisters Christine and Denise, and Denise’s son Ben were in attendance.  That evening we joined them for supper at Christine’s new house, just over the border in NC.  We had a good chance to catch up as well as try and reconstruct the past, (I hadn’t seen Andrée, Christine and Denise since sometime in the early ‘90s!).

     It’s good to know that we have a few more friends to visit next time we’re coming up the ICW!