2/7/2013 - 04/20/2013

During 2 more weeks at Tiger Point, the teak rail was finished beautifully, we continued on the cleaning and some of the small boat projects that are always there to be done and had more time to enjoy Meg, Greg and the rest of the folks at Tiger Point. My brother Bruce and sister Diana even stopped on there way from a wedding in Punta Gorda FL back to NC so we could get together for dinner. We finally were ready to go and had a lovely weather window on 2/21. And what an easy trip to Brunswick it was. We left at 0830 and arrived at 1430 - a 6 hour trip on the outside. Blue skies, wind on the nose, of course, and cool weather. But a lovely boost on the tide leaving St. Mary's Sound and another one coming into Brunswick. Sherri and Cindy, the dock masters here at BLM, were here to take our lines. So we are now happily sitting on the T-head of Dock 2 - our old place.

And here we will be until later this year. With all of the upgrades we did and the work on Eos that we had to do (some definitely not planned for or expected), there were a lot of boat bucks spent on her the latter part of 2012 and the beginning of 2013. We talked it over and decided we would pass on the Bahamas trip (which can be costly with the fuel prices and if you become hung up in a marina someplace due to bad weather) and just stay Stateside the rest of this spring and through hurricane season. Although that could have been very disappointing we are truly excited about the change in plans. We have decided to become local day sailors in Brunswick and really get some SAILING time in on Eos. We have done lots of motoring and motor sailing on her and are quite comfortable with that but we aren't as comfortable just sailing her simply because we haven't done that much. It does take a couple of hours each way to get out to the deep water where we can sail but we used to spend all day on the lakes in MN. There will just be more hours motoring and a few hours less sailing - but lots of sailing room. We have promised to get ourselves to try to get out every week - weather permitting. And this marina is a great place for Sylvia to start developing her docking and helm skills in close quarters and for Bill to refine his. Anyway, we are very content and happy with our change in plans and decision to stay here awhile.

As soon as we arrived we got busy and did some more cleaning up and readied our selves for a visit from Ken Gelao, friend and sailor from MN. Ken was here for 10 days and what a marvelous guest he was. He may come back anytime. The weather was not what any of us wanted for doing day sailing. It was cold and the winds where from the north most of the time which made it even colder both here and out on the big water. But being a sailor Ken understood and was just happy to be away from the real cold and snows in MN. He was a wonderful help for Bill - helping clean and treat the deck as well as clean and oil wood trim in the cabin. He did get some taste for the area when we had a car and he met other cruisers at both Happy Hour and the weekly Dominoes Chicken Foot evening. We motored out one day to see how long it would take us to reach the big water where we can actually sail Eos. It is a solid 2 hour trip each way so we have to figure that into our day sailing plans. There was no sailing that day because we got started too late; so it was a trip out and a trip back arriving back just in time for the winds to build and for it got really cold. Good timing on out part - just lucky. We did go out another day and had a fine day of sailing - very reminiscent of Lake Superior sailing. As we were going out the Coast Guard Cutter pulled up along side us for a boarding and check. Everything was fine and legal and one of the fellows who came aboard had just moved here after 3 years in Duluth. Ken said he was glad to have the experience so he would know what to expect and what to have readily available if it ever happened to him. We then went on out and had some nice easy sailing with minimal seas and were even able to sail up the channel for an hour coming in. All in all it was a nice day on the water.

We trotted Ken off to the Confederate Station one Friday evening for some real down home music. At one point he said he thought we were in a revival meeting. It was open mic night and Linda Bandalier, a professional singer, songwriter and storyteller from one of the boats here was, as far as we were concerned, the hit of the evening. Her professionalism certainly out shone everyone there. She and Geoff and Nellie are here from Scotland working on a boat they bought here and intend to take back to Edinburgh. Nellie turned 13 a couple of months ago and is a frequent visitor coming all the way from dock 15 to dock 2 to see us. She really comes to see Spanker but we get to enjoy here while she is here.

The day before Ken left. John and Joan Lane on Changing Lanes came in. John had been in VA and had moved the boat to Savannah a week or so before Joan flew in from Newfoundland. Like Ken she was glad to get away from the winter. They stayed here a week which gave us time to enjoy each other. We shared the week's rental on a car and on the 16th the 4 of us drove up to Savannah for their St. Patrick's Day parade. The weather was beautiful and we thoroughly enjoyed watching both the parade and the crowd of watchers. My apologizes for so many pics in the gallery but it big parade.

We were sorry to see Changing Lanes leave but just a few days after that we got a call from Paul on Cavalier II with the surprising news that he was standing in the cockpit looking at Eos. I thought he was calling from Canada. Both he and Donna were here checking out the boat and making sure it was in good shape for the possible buyer they had. Although they were only here for a few days what a treat to spend time with them; I gave Donna another chance to trounce me in Backgammon and she did just that. The boat did, in fact, sale and it sailed away yesterday. We hated to see it go since it won't be a reason now for them to return to GA. We will keep in touch and hope we can reconnect sometime, somewhere in the future. Making new friends as we cruise is a joy when we make them and a sadness when they leave.


As usual there was an Easter potluck here at the marina with lots of good eats and this time Sherri, the dock master, had us playing some games for prizes. What a kick. And during the Easter Egg Hunt Bill was lucky enough to find the plastic egg with the $100 bill in it. It was a good thing Bill was doing the looking while I was taking pictures because I have never won anything and wouldn't have been so lucky, I am sure.

The weather has continued to improve although it seems to be going from cool to hot and now back to cool again. Good weather for boat work like installing the new externally mounted holding tank monitor. That was a couple of days of plumbing and "fun" work while we removed our Lectrasan waste treatment system at the same time. Bill took his refresher course in waster management which he just loves getting to. Oh, what interesting and challenging things we can get into just maintaining the boat let alone sailing and traveling on her.

Folks who were here during last hurricane season have started returning so the slips are filling up and we will soon probably have enough people for a couple of tables of Chicken Foot. Ann and Lynn on Sea Tramp (who were kind enough to leave us the key to their car - what a boon!) and Clyde and Sherri on Morada are gone until mid-May but Sam and Mae on our dock are here from Scotland until then so we have been able to have enough people around to get a weekly game going. So on this rainy day in Georgia it was a good time to update this blog before this evening's Chicken Foot gathering.