Journey's End - March 12th, 2011 Charlotte, NC

Our voyage of dreams has ended!  We arrived home to Charlotte Saturday evening about 8 PM, leaving Cool Change in the Brunswick Landing Marina.  We had driven from Brunswick, GA to Little River, SC in a rental car Friday (280 miles) with a side visit to our prospective new marina in Charleston.   After replacing the dead battery in the old Taurus, which had been parked in Little River for the past four monthss, we drove it and the rental car back to Brunswick,, encompassing Friday evening and Saturday morning.  Another 280 miles.  Then, after loading the Taurus with all our take-home stuff, we took off for Charlotte (340 miles).  All this in a span of 38 hours.  The Taurus was dragging bottom when it pulled out of Brunswick.  We have both pretty much been dragging bottom for the past 24 hours. 

How Brunswick became our new home port:

For the past two weeks, high winds and very threatening weather had caused us to seek shelter in the marina in Cocoa Village, FL, tossed us around while buoyed in St. Augustine harbor, clobbered us in St. Andrews Sound, and waylaid us for four days at the Brunswick Landing.  Our friend, Roger from Merritt Island, FL, stopped by for a visit on the fourth day as we were trying to decide whether to stay another two days in Brunswick waiting out more high winds.  He suggested that we might consider staying in Brunswick as this is a very good marina and close to FL for the next year.  We weren't even thinking of that option.  We were heading for Charleston. 
At that point our daily rate in Brunswick would about equal the monthly rate and the marina agreed to credit us for the paid up month.  Second, we would save three days of boat travel and 220 waterway miles and about $400 in fuel.  If we went to the chosen marina in Charleston, we would have to lay out another month's slip rental there. With this all considered, we made the decision not to go on to Charleston and to end our wonderful adventure early by a few days. 
Now that we have traveled by car to the Charleston marina, we decided that it was not right for us.  With this, Brunswick has become our new home port.  And, the Brunswick Marina is only one day away from St Augustine next year.  The drawback is that Brunswick is a 6-hour drive from Charlotte.  That is 1 1/2 hours more than Little River's drive last year. 

A strange leaving:
As we loaded the car to leave Cool Change behind in Brunswick, both Colleen and I had sorrowful regrets about leaving our boat home behind.  Cool Change had truly become home to us.  We had really made her ours.  Of the almost four months that we were boat travelling, we only slept ashore four nights.   She had sheltered us as we anchored in saw grass plains with nary a light, boat, or home in sight.  She had held us in stiff current and high winds.  We had become quite accustomed to her.  We were taken back by those feelings when we were finally loaded and were ready to depart for Charlotte.  We didn't expect that.  It was hard to leave.

We are glad to be home.  But home seems so big now and Colleen is having some difficulty adjusting to walking across the kitchen when everything was within easy reach aboard Cool Change.  We have forgotten our pathways through the house in the dark.  We still do not know where we hid the garage remote from Colleen's car.   And we could not remember where we hid the Corvette keys, though we did find them.  I find that I am missing the closeness of touch, sound and breath that we experienced aboard the boat.  In 42 years of marriage, we had never had this physical closeness.  I already miss it!

We hope that those of you who followed our trip via this blog have enjoyed hearing about our adventures.  We would greatly appreciate you letting us know via a quick email if you've been reading about our four months on our boat - cnthrailkill@gmail.com or wayne.thrailkill@gmail.com

Thanks for journeying with us.