Life on the dock-

Brunswick layover

We have been here in Brunswick, Georgia for over a week now. We have signed up for a month, not really intending to stay that long. But the marina has the rates set, so that if you are here a week, you are better off to go to the monthly plan. The only issue is that we have to watch our power consumption as they then meter the power at .23 per kilowatt hour.

With that we are turning off AC units as we can, to stay comfortable and to try to save power.

Brunswick Landing Marina is a large marina. Located well up the Brunswick River, and Academy Creek the marina is very well protected in all but southerly winds. They did well with Hurricane Mathew last year, and it is marked as a hurricane hole.

We have met a lot of cruisers here, some new and some that we had met along the way, in the Bahamas. It has been a lot of fun. The marina offers free beer in the club house, and on Mon, Wed, and Friday nights they also offer free wine. Our first night here was a Wednesday, and we took up our Cajun popcorn, and shared amongst the nibbles that others brought. We met a very travelled couple on a Diesel Duck trawler, named “Peking” (uugh). They have been through the canal twice, up and down the west coast, the Baja, and back to the Caribbean, and spent lots of time in the Central American Caribbean.

We met other trawlers, and of course lots of sail boaters.  We are on dock 1, the marina office and fuel dock, the most southerly dock in the marina.  We get to see the new arrivals first, as Ralph and Matt keep us updated with new arrivals.

That is how we first heard that Grace of Tides was on the way. Jerry and Dee on their Nordhavn 68, we had met briefly in Highbourne Cay, Bahamas. They were here a few days heading north, Hilton Head the next stop.

They invited us to join them one evening to watch a locally produced play called, “The Savannah Sipping Club”. Three women actors played southern socialites in a new town, Savannah. It was very enjoyable, and a nice Tai restaurant meal proceeding the entertainment.

Jerry advised us to purchase some folding bikes, saying that they always used them making shore excursions much better. After they left to Hilton Head, we used the marina bikes to head over to the Publix and West Marina, about 2 miles away from the marina.   A very long walk, but a really enjoyable bike ride. Since then we have made half a dozen excursions by bike, always enjoying the briskness of the ride, and even in the 90’s the heat is much more bearable with the breeze created by the ride.

One afternoon we peddled over to the shrimp boat dock, about 1 mile south of the marina. We purchased a pound of large shrimp for $8.00 and then peddled to the local shop for some dipping cocktail sauce. 

Since then, several other cruisers have raved about having bikes on board.  And so we have placed an order on Amazon for 2 folding bikes, gel seats, detachable handlebar baskets, locks and a tire pump.  I feel a bit like a kid waiting for their delivery from Santa; should be here on Monday.

Last night we had an 80 foot Azimuth dock on the end of the fuel dock, a 48 foot Selene trawler, next to us, and a 40 Princess named “Wine Down”. It was a busy night on the dock.  The captain of Wine Down asked me if we had been in Port Lucaya this year. Yes we had, did we remember 2 fat guys stopping by from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina? “Yes,” well that was me, cried Nick.

So we haven old dock mates reacquainted, as we stood on the dock sipping our drinks for an hour telling tall tales. Nick is a funny guy, and invites us to look him up when we are going through Myrtle Beach.

The Azimuth kept tripping the dock’s power supply breaker. Ralph from the marina came by to check on it, and stayed and joined in with Nick, ourselves, the couple on the Selene, and participated in spinning seafaring tales.

Life on the dock is pretty social.

We have done a number of projects around the boat. The aircon was acting up. The AC guy from Fernandina can’t get here for 2 weeks. So I decided to tackle a cooling issue. We have 5 separate AC units on the boat, cooled by a single water pump that circulates sea water through the units and out the side of the hull. I noticed the guest cabin AC outlet was trickling, rather than showing a steady stream of water.

Jenny and I went through each unit, pulling off the inlet (from the pump) and outlet hose, and running the high pressure dock water through the units.

We also cleaned out he sea strainer, again (3 times since Ft Lauderdale), and pulled the hoses of the pump and blew high pressure water through each hose. We hope that after about 10 hours of hard labour this helps to keep the AC units cooled and the air cooler. So far, so good.

We also did another boat spa for Southern Star. Hands and knees cleaning of the topsides, and decks, I climbed up the stack and cleaned the soot off the highest point. We pulled the boat alongside the dock and scrubbed the starboard side of the hull, and while cleaning the bow waterline, I slipped and fell into the dark warm marina water. I had to swim to the back of the boat in the tepid broth to get out.

We cleaned and waxed the stainless steel rails, and stanchions. We cleaned and shined the BBQ (actually Jenny did while I did the galley).

We purchased and installed 3 new fans; replacing the one in our cabin which was getting very noisy, and installing a new one in the wheel house, and one in the salon.

Yesterday, I renovated all of the lines, and bungies on the old Ocean Kayak, and ordered some rod holder mounts from West Marine, to turn the pink yak into a fishing yak.

A few days ago, we did a major clean of the dinghy. We had it in the water after a day last week when we ran over to Jekyll Island for a swim off the beach there.

Jenny has done multiple loads of laundry, the machines located at the small clubhouse near the marina office dock. The machines are free to use.

I keep thinking that I will get bored and antsy to leave, but so far we have been well entertained, and are getting a lot done.

We are also really enjoying Brunswick itself. It is an old city, with beautiful old buildings, wide veranda porches, Spanish moss draped oak trees. It is a real town, with lots of empty buildings. It feels poor, but has an eclitic feel. Just a few block away from the central district are old shotgun houses, occupied by mostly blacks. We feel comfortable riding our bikes around the streets, it has a peaceful feeling to the place. It feels unprenshious and real, and very pretty in its way.

Martyne and Jeff (my sister and bro in law) are coming out to visit 11 July. We will probably move on to Hilton Head by then to pick them up. But we have slowed down some so that they can enjoy some of the South with us.