S/V Geru: Back to Brunswick, Georgia

8 November 2008

We left Fort Lauderdale on Friday, September 12th. We had planned on sailing on the outside (along the coast, not on the ICW) right up to Brunswick. As we left the harbour, however, we met large waves which had built due to a combination of the remains of the onshore winds and waves of hurricane Ike and the outgoing tide. It was far too uncomfortable to travel with these waves on the beam (from the side), so we headed back in and travelled up the ICW to Lake Worth over the next two days. We had been told that this section of the ICW gets pretty bad due to the number of bridges and the boat traffic, but because of the time of year (September being in the off-season), there were hardly any other boats out. The bridges did slow us down, but the nice weather and the scenery of waterfront mansions made for a pleasant trip.

We left Lake Worth on Sunday and travelled north on the outside. The trip from Lake Worth to Brunswick, Georgia, took us two and a half days and was our first time sailing through the night. We ran an unconventional watch schedule where Ruth started her watch at 8pm and stayed up until about 4am. Then Geoff got up and took over until noon, and then both of us were awake and shared the helm until 8pm. Most people break up the night into four-hour sections rather than the eight we used, but we found that this worked quite well for us. The schedule aligns with our natural tendencies - Ruth is more of a night owl and Geoff a morning person. The sail up to Brunswick was quite pleasant, although we were in light winds so we (yet again) motored a fair bit of the way. Of note during the trip was the cruise ship Geoff saw going into Port Canaveral before dawn, the sea turtle we both saw and at first almost missed because its back was the same colour as the ubiquitous light brown floating sea weed, and the painfully slow motor up the Brunswick River and into the marina due to the tidal current against us.

Over the last two months in Brunswick we have cleaned up the boat, reprovisioned, and done some minor maintenance on Geru. It has been really nice to catch up on some items that have been on the list since we bought the boat, such as replacing the exhaust hose and cleaning the years of engine oil out of the engine bilge. Thanks to the cleaning and sorting we have been able to do in Brunswick, the boat feels a lot more organized - although we still feel that she's just starting to get to the state we'd like to have her in. We will be leaving some "stuff" in storage here as well, because we have found that we still have much more on board than we need or want.

One of the great things about our stop here has been the time we've had to catch up with old friends whom we had met during our travels or previously in Brunswick. We have also explored the surrounding "Golden Isles" area with car trips over to Jekyll and St. Simons Islands, and we took day trips to Savannah, Georgia, and St. Augustine, Florida. We had not been in Savannah before, and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit there. It is a beautiful city with quaint streets and many squares canopied by large live oak trees covered in Spanish moss. We took a sightseeing tour in Savannah and learned more about the history of the southern US.

Our plan now is to head off to the BVIs (British Virgin Islands). We are currently expecting to sail directly there with no stops along the way, but this will depend on the weather. We had originally planned to leave a week ago, but a North-Atlantic low and the development of hurricane Paloma have pushed out our departure date. Now everything looks good to go for Sunday the 9th.