Marina Life
Karen:
The kids and I spent 2 months living aboard at Brunswick Landing Marina, in Georgia. Michael went back to Vancouver for 6 of these weeks to finish up work, sell the car and move us out of the apartment.
Our arrival at the marina was smooth and uneventful a Keane style trainwreck. After waiting for the right weather window, we left Fernandina Beach at 6am, and had a sunny, calm, glorious passage North to arrive around 2pm at the marina. All was going well. We approached the marina and had radioed in to get our slip assignment, were making our way there, when a small fishing boat darted out infront of us!! This rattled our skipper; manouvering our 47ft boat in close quarters is a skill to master, and we haven't practiced much yet. So he was trying to get the boat to turn the boat around as the current pushed us off and the light breeze caught us on the beam, and SNAP we lost our steering cable!! Great, no steering. We radioed the marina, but there was no support boat to come help us so we had to call Sea-Tow. Frustrated, we let our anchor down and drifted into a mud bank, sat on the deck and had a snack of pringles with the kids while we awaited help. We ended up with the shortest tow in Seatow history - to make it the last 100 feet into our marina slip!!
So right off the bat, getting repairs done in Brunswick became our mission. Luckily, we were in good hands. The first person that I met at the marina was Jamie, a liveaboard who handles all types of boat repair work. I suppose given our arrival at the marina that we were prime new clients!! He hooked us up with Don, a 25 year cruising veteran, who now in his 70s, still did boat repair work to ‘fund his cruising lifestyle’. Don came by for a few hours a day, to work on the steering cable, and the compressor on our freezer that also blew out, and spent time mentoring me in so many ways, above all giving us encouragement that we had the right attitude, we could learn as we go, and that mistakes happen and it's all normal. He showed me which weather sites to use, which repairs are important vs. which could wait, how to source the parts, find experts that were needed for specific work, and how to troubleshoot. I also connected with another liveaboard couple here that runs a local canvas shop and refoamed our cockpit cushions - lovely people making boat life happen!
The marina hosts ‘happy hour’ social nights 3x per week that are a great place to meet people. I learned quickly that we were surrounded by many VERY experienced boaters that loved to share what they know with noobs like us. It brought excitement to our days to prepare something to bring to ‘Italian Night’, to attend Taco night, Valentines brunch or the Mardi Gras party. They also put on learning sessions, like how to plan a passage to the Bahamas, and Christian’s favorite - an expired flare shoot day - super fun!!
There weren't many kids at the marina while we were there. I was concerned about this - how would our super social kids cope with that? There were definitely times they got bored. Our schedule was something like this:
Wake up and have breakfast.
Start school / work. For the kids, some days this was for 3 hours, sometimes, only 1.
Have lunch made by the kids. Then hit the clubhouse, or go to the library while mom works.
Take an afternoon walk break. Pick up a package if we ordered anything
Do some drawing, read a book.
Ask mom when she will be done work.
Then, after a few weeks, we had a request from our boat neighbour - could we dog sit while they went to Savannah for the day? This changed everything - the kids got to know 2 amazing dogs, Gordie & Charlie, and a daily ritual of dog walking began. Flo got to know every dog and dog owner at the dog park. She even made a poster to advertise her dog sitting business! This really added so much excitement to our day.
I was taking 3 day weekends at this point - a very civilized work week! So Fridays we would clean the boat, make an appy and go to happy hour at the club house. Play online games with friends back home. I had a list of outings for us to do in Brunswick with the kids - local sights and events. This was interrupted by each of us getting sick (covid) and a cold snap - the first snow in 40 years! Not so bad, but our little electric heater was really not cutting it. Then, Ben, the boat’s previous owner reached out to remind us that we have an awesome Diesel heater onboard - and we did a zoom call so he could show me how to work it - game changer!! We were toasty warm!
We made new rituals - playing QRKL with ginger ale and chips & dip from the local farm market, either in the cockpit or in the salon, listening to classic rock on the awesome local radio station. Bike rides for groceries on Sundays. Making pancakes or baking cookies. Making the salon sofa into a bed and cuddling up to watch a movie. Our own cozy little world.
