Sailing Miles

We actually spent Christmas at Brunswick Landing Marina. We had a chilly night or two, but did not get shut down on I-80, due to winter weather. (Like we have spent many a Christmas.)

We realized that we could take a day on the Intercoastal Waterway, the ICW. Normally, it's not a good choice for us,  with our deep draft and high mast, but we saw that if we hit Muddy Creek at high tide, and cleared the bridge before Brunswick at low tide, we could enjoy a day of motoring. The wind was poor for sailing, and it was to rain most of the day, so we decided to enjoy our "inside" day. More dolphins, lots of birds, and some very remote places. Besides, after two days without internet, Steve had a ton of work to catch up on. We made it into Brunswick Landing Marina, where we ended up spending Christmas, and learning a lot from other cruisers. Day four continues to be our only day "inside" the ICW. Maybe when we get up north next year we might want to try another one. Maybe not.

On day three, we went: around in circles. We got up in a good time for our weather window, started our pre-trip checks, and discovered that the crazy winds during the night had blown a line overboard. We couldn't retrieve it, and suspected the line was wrapped around the prop.  We had no cell service to reach our mentors, but managed a text to Ben Carey. We had taken sailing/cruising lessons from him in October  (Morse Alpha Expeditions. We couldn't recommend them enough), and had kept in touch. We suspected that with all the circles around our anchor, that we had the line around the prop. Ben confirmed our suspicions, and said we needed to clear the line.  Who gets to go into the 56° water with a four knot current and six inches of visibility? Well, me. Brrrr. Steve and Cindy wanted to wait until the tide was at a minimum speed before I went in. We had plenty of projects to keep us busy, so we worked until 13:00, and I cut the line off in abo

Our second day was also amazing. After we took the time to look up the weather, the tides, and picked out our "A", "B", and "C" anchorage plans, we got a bit of a late start, and ended up at our "B" anchorage, in Johnson Creek GA. We saw dolphins again, and began playing with different sail configurations. What we DON'T know still amazes us. Our anchorage helped us learn about our boat. As we have observed since then also, our deep keel make us current-bound, instead of wind-bound. We often are facing a different direction than anyone else in the anchorage. That night we had wind blowing 25 mph, with gusts up to 42 mph. The anchorage is also known for fast currents. All this made for little sleep during the night. We were glad that our mentors, Jamie and Behan, had recommended buying a range-finder. We, at least, knew that we were not too close to shore.  We planned out our next day before going

We had closed on the sale of Miles on October 28. We had several projects to complete before we could start our trip around the world. Of course we needed to move aboard, also. We additionally drove two loads of stuff down from Colorado, visited family and friends, received a safety award, went boating on the Tennessee Driver, quit our jobs, and dyed our hair blue (first time with hair dye for both of us.) Kind of a busy time. By my birthday on December tenth, it seemed like we could continue working on the boat forever, and not go anywhere. We had heard that it happens to boat owners. Our Buyers Agent, Richard Jordan, mentioned that boatyards are places where dreams go to die. Wow, that's sad. We didn't want that to happen to us! We made a list of the critical safety and operational items we needed to finish before we left, and found that we had completed them. Whoo-Hoo! We could go boating

Just because we are out of trucking, doesn't mean we can stop worrying about bridge clearances. https://youtu.be/fDF0b0MygDA

Click here to see a Facebook post about some last-minute projects before we started our trip around the world.

Click here to see a Facebook post about boaters that decorate. I guess it's a thing. Who knew? Hang on Snoopy, Snoopy hang on.