Georgia On My Mind

Greetings Twiggies! Twiglets? Twiggos? I’m working on it. Let me know.

The soundtrack for today’s post is the classic song written by Hoagy Carmichael in 1930, later made famous by Ray Charles. However, I’m not going to give you a link to that version of “Georgia on My Mind” because I think the slightly funkier version by Led Zeppelin is much more appropriate….

You see, Georgia has been on our mind for about a month now. Not only is Brunswick, GA the location of the marina where we will embark on our journey, but St Marys, GA is the place where Twig has been “stuck” for about a month. You’re already familiar with our love hate relationship with the country of Panama, so let me introduce you to Georgia.

In early January (the 9th) our delivery crew triumphantly arrived in Panama to bring our lovely 2008 Leopard 46 Twig home to the USA so that our family can take off on the sailing adventure of a lifetime. That arrival turned out to be the only triumphant part of their time there. The 9th was a Saturday. The plan was to land, provision the next day (Sunday), and take off on Monday.

Slight snag. There is no customs/immigration office in the area where Twig is floating (yes, she was finally floating). No problem mon, the crew is flexible, they can drive a bit on Monday to an office in another town.

You wish.

Monday is a random national holiday in Panama, a fact that nobody seemed to know ahead of time. Guess we’ll being paying the crew for some naps in the tropics while they wait it out. However, the captain is not sleeping, because there is a small matter of an outstanding invoice at the Marina.

A small matter of a not so small invoice of questionable calculation.

After we finally sort the details, the marina graciously tells me I can pay by credit card. Yay, frequent flier points! Well, they tell our french speaking on site worker who tells our Spanish speaking agent who translates for us. However, they seem unable to provide any sort of link/details on how to actually pay the invoice. To get moving, the captain pays with his cc, and I send him some love via zelle. I guess he gets the frequent flier points.

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Time to go! Let’s fill the tanks! Are they full yet?

Who knows..the fuel gauges still don’t work. We know that there is diesel going in because the cabin reeks of the stuff. lovely. I guess that rag was supposed to block the smell?

Once they get going, it’s actually pretty uneventful. We are able to watch the miles tick away on a website map the crew provided us. They sail north to the Cayman Islands, wait out a squall, and continue on to the USA. About 10 days later they drop Twig off at anchor in St Marys, GA to await new standing rigging. For those of you who don’t know: Standing rigging is the metal cables holding up the mast..much like the cables you see holding up a power line pole. It is supposed to be replaced every 10 yrs, ours is 15 yrs old.

Here’s where the good news comes in:

Our anchor is a boss. Seriously, it works like a charm! In fact, it works SO well that the rigging crew is completely unable to get the anchor up when they’re ready to start work. It’s partly because the windlass (the motor that pulls the anchor up) is shorting out, and partly because the anchor is completely bedded in the muck on the bottom of the river. They have to detach the chain (which is apparently on its last leg) from the boat and tie it to a mooring ball (a bouy with it’s own anchor) to get Twig to shore to start work. Later, they have to send divers to the mooring ball to go down and wiggle the anchor out of the mud. At the hourly rate of a rigger….which is not cheap.

I’m considering nick naming the anchor “Poseidon”. Thoughts?

The mast needs to come off to accurately measure the rigging and fittings for replacement. This is something best done in calm conditions…so of course there is a storm. A bunch of them. A week’s worth of them. The 10 day re-rigging ends up taking…. um, I dunno, it’s not done yet. We’re told “next week”. It’s been a month.

In addition to Twig making her way to GA, we have landed here as well. Last Saturday, we loaded up the family (and a 5X8 uhaul trailer) for the three day journey from Denver to Brunswick. Back in our 20s, that trip would be a piece of cake. In our 30s, somewhat cumbersome. In our 40s….let’s just say that we utilized modern medicine to relieve our aches and pains. By day 3 I learned to head off the pains with an 8 hour Icy Hot patch across my left shoulder first thing in the morning. Worked like a charm.

Our three planned 8 hour days turned into 10-11 hrs each after bathroom stops and the fact that our u-haul keeps us at the mandated 55 mph. Well, no, no it didn’t actually keep us at 55 mph (shh)… but we didn’t go as fast as we normally would.

Kansas was windy. That was annoying. Until it was more.

BOOM! What was that sound? Pull over! No my friend, not the flat tire that you may be thinking.

A gust of wind blasted open the Thule box we had on the roof and left the lid banging around. On inspection, the Thule is now toast. The hinges are ripped off, and the casing is cracked. I guess we won’t be selling that for Diesel money in GA after all 🙁 No worries, I was a boy scout and always come prepared. A quick job with a ratchet strap ensures that our luggage will make it to our destination inside the broken shell on our topsides.

We make it to GA at the end of day three utterly exhausted. Luckily we have a day off before starting boat school (with no boat) and before I have to go back to work. Un-luckily the AirBnB didn’t provide coffee. I’ll have to find ours in the morning.

Morning. I really need that coffee. It’s a good thing we had the forethought to pack ours in a box that is buried under pretty much every single other box in the u-haul. I have to unload 1/2 of the trailer just to get to that little bitter black cup of magic. While I’m at it, I unload the other 1/2 to get to the flip flops that I thought I wouldn’t need till much later.

I know. First world problems. Here’s a pic.

We’re here now. We have been to the beach a couple times, and the kiddos started boat school yesterday. I’m happy to say that they loved it (the school and the beach), although they need to learn to treat their new teacher with a little more respect. The rigging for the boat has officially shipped, and with any luck we’ll have our new floating home to start moving on to by early/mid next week.

Did you read all of that and think that we’re in misery? Quite the opposite. I’m a cheeky son of a gun, and that’s the way I write. We’re actually loving the first phase of our adventure, and I have already slipped into a new pace of life. Today I woke up with the sun, and made a pot of (now easily accessible) coffee. A rooster up the street gave me a soundtrack while I posted some pics of the kids doing home school on instagram. Hunter woke up a bit later and we cuddled. Everybody else woke up at their own pace, and are now doing airbnb school while I wait to start my work day.

Even without a boat, I feel like we’re cruisers already. And, yes, I promise that there will eventually be a boat in this blog.