S/V Stella Blue: Thanksgiving Go Round

While we have been sailing south - our truck has stayed at the marina in North Carolina. We also had a storage unit in New Bern with miscellaneous "things". So we used the Thanksgiving holiday to close up all loose ends. This was a bit logistically complicated, especially since we were on a mooring in St. Augustine and would be gone for 4 days - but we made it work. Here's essentially how it went.

On Tuesday morning, Baxter took me to shore, the Hertz office picked me up at the marina and took me to get the rental car. I drove back and picked up Kala. Baxter went back to the boat. He picked up the 10 a.m. marina tender and met me on the dock. We drove nine hours to New Bern and picked up our truck. Then we drove to the airport and dropped the rental car off. We drove back to the marina and spent the night in the truck (hottest night in November). The next day (Wednesday) we cleaned out the storage unit during a massive thunderstorm where we figured out the staysail boom was almost as long as the truck - again, we made it work. We bandited a couple of dumpsters in the area and continued on the eight hour drive to Atlanta. We arrived in Atlanta at Baxter's parents house and had enough time for a provisioning trip to Costco.

On Thursday morning, we drove out to the property in Madison and Kala was able to run around the farm. She wore herself out having fun! We left our truck in Madison for safe storage. Then, since it was Thanksgiving after all, and we have millions of blessings to be thankful for, we headed over to Burge Plantation and had one of the best lunches ever! I think it was the most food I have ever consumed in one sitting. There is a new appreciation for salad after living on a boat.

Friday morning, Baxter went to the Atlanta airport and rented another car. He picked up Kala and I and we headed out for the six hour drive to St Augustine. Unfortunately, the car was due back in Jacksonville - not St. Augustine. So Kala and I dropped Baxter and our provisions off at the dock and drove to Jax. We then took a shuttle back to St. Augustine (about an hour) and met up with Baxter around 9 p.m. Oh yeah, I did manage to find a Camping World in the mean time to refill one of our propane tanks. (Some cruisers refill at St Augustine Gas but their hours were prohibitive for us on this trip).

After about 28 hours of total driving in less than four days, we managed to reprovision, refill our propane tanks, and enjoy a wonderful holiday with family and friends. An added bonus was playtime for Kala. We were all safe and sound back aboard Stella Blue with provisions stored by 10 p.m. as if we had never left.