The One With Life In Brunswick, Georgia

Right off the bat I’m going to apologize for the enormous amount of content in this post about Brunswick, Georgia.

In an effort to catch up to “real time” (because many of you have expressed how much it drives you crazy when my content is behind) I’m going to cram more than 2 months into one post.

After purchasing our boat on March 17th, we divided our time between Brunswick and Charlotte until moving aboard full time on May 15th.

Our time in Brunswick was relatively uneventful with a few exceptions.

First I’ll mention the very sad news that several people have asked me about. Yes, our marina is in the town where Ahmaud Arbery was killed. We were not there when it happened, but we were when the news broke in the media.

Without a doubt, a heartbreaking situation and we are confident justice will be served.

Coronavirus was also a hot topic during our time here. Our marina quickly shut down official social gatherings, but remained open. Within a week there were tons of boats arriving from the Keys and Bahamas after getting kicked out.

I think most boaters feel a million miles away from the real world so it was an interesting line to tow. Especially for us because we were going back and forth to Charlotte.

Aside from those two noteworthy global stories, here are our personal highlights from Brunswick:

Isolation School

Although our family has been worldschooling for several years now, isolation school was a whole new ballgame. It took us a little while to get into the groove. Both kids began attending zoom meetings with their teachers and classmates (they go to a private school that meets 1 day per week.)

We got into an okay morning routine on the boat of school, exercise and boat projects- leaving the afternoon free for fun. Thankfully, with a week of spring break and a last-day-of-school scheduled for early May, we really only had to do isolation school for 6 weeks.

I think we’re all thrilled to be done with curriculum learning for 1st and 6th grade…but, of course, we’re still learning a ton every day about boating and all the cool places we’re traveling!

Adopted Dogs

Exciting news for our family- we’ve unofficially adopted 2 new dogs. Yankee and Rebel belong to another boat, Howaho, but Miller and Mary Grace spend as much time with them as possible. The dogs owners, Jim and Kelly, are also planning to do the Great Loop.

We’ve forged an awesome friendship and we’re planning to travel together as much as possible. In Brunswick our two families began a tradition of pizza on Friday nights- needless to say, the kids love it!

Loads of Boat Repairs

I’m learning quickly that with boats, there’s always something that needs repair. Our short list that we’d made based on the inspection quickly grew. We had some work done on both of Light & Salty’s engines, as well as the dinghy’s engine. We had electrical work and AC tune-ups.

Additionally, we enclosed the whole back of our boat. To say that I’m obsessed with this new addition is an understatement! We love our screened in back patio (that can also become a fully enclosed area in rain or cold.)

Disappearing Bike

Brunswick Landing Marina covers about a mile of coastline. After a few weeks we felt very comfortable letting the kiddos ride their bikes up and down the parking lot by all of the docks.

One day after lunch, Mary Grace’s bike completely vanished. After some searching and reviewing the dock security cameras (without a definite answer) we had our friend dive the area to see if he could find it. Sure enough, Mary Grace’s bike fell off the dock and ended up on the ocean floor! We all had a good little laugh over this misadventure.

Friends Visit

One weekend our good friends Scott and Rachel came to visit with their two cute boys, Trey and Jax. Scott and Brent became best friends in High School, and we loved living close to them when we lived in Orlando. They were even at the hospital when Mary Grace was born! Although we don’t get to see them a lot- we absolutely cherish the time we get to spend with them.

Rachel has a cookie cake business and brought us a yummy treat to celebrate. Despite some rain, we had the best day together!

Scrubbed Launch

Space X launched their rocket from Kennedy Space Center during our time in Brunswick. Being 3 hours away (by car) we made the decision to drive down. Unfortunately, 10 minutes prior to the launch it got scrubbed.

We were obviously disappointed, but it was a fun family day. On the way home we ate dinner right on the beach, which was our first time eating in a restaurant since March.

Exploring Jekyll and St. Simons Island

Brunswick, Georgia is tucked right behind Jekyll and St. Simons Island. We visited both a couple times. On Jekyll we hiked to a secluded beach on the back side of the island and we returned to the same beach via dinghy another day.

On St. Simons we found an amazing spot to each lunch, The Porch, and visited Fort Frederica National Monument. The kids were so excited to get another stamp in our NPS Passport Book, and earn another Junior Ranger badge.

Boating Practice

One of the most important things we did in Brunswick is practice boating. We took Light & Salty out several times to do some short day trip driving and anchor practice. Brent also enjoyed all of the docking practice. The kids have gotten SO good at all of it. For each step of boating we all haves jobs and it’s been a lot of fun to learn our roles.

Animal Adventures

A huge highlight for the kids has been all the fun animals we’ve seen in or near our marina. Miller has turned into quite the fisherman. We’ve seen countless dolphins, a couple alligators, and even a manatee hung out near our boat for an afternoon.

We also got to talk to the crew of Ocearch, a shark research lab that calls Brunswick home when they aren’t traveling around the world tagging sharks.

Other than all of these highlights, we’ve enjoyed so many gorgeous sunsets and exploring the charming little downtown area of Brunswick. We made a lot of friends on the docks. And we learned how to do things like cook on a boat, and marina laundry.

Thanks for following along on our adventures! Stay tuned for our next post: The One Where We Anchor Out For The First Night. Here’s a little spoiler alert…it didn’t go well!

In the meantime, you may enjoy reading:

The One Where We Decided To Live On A Boat

Our Pacific Northwest Adventure

Meet Our Famiy

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