Howdy! The night before we left Morning Star Marina was not fun at all. Poppa’s arm some how swelled up and got infected so we took him to the emergency room. They wouldn’t let me in so Momma and I waited in the car for hours! We were going to go back to the boat, but there was a bad storm with lightning and we didn’t think we should be walking on the docks until it cleared up. Luckily, Poppa didn’t have to be admitted and was released with antibiotics. Whew!
When took off at sunrise the next morning, Momma was nervous but Poppa had the biggest smile I’d ever seen on his face.
We took off just liked we practiced and headed down the ICW on our first solo trip. There were several times that Poppa got real nervous because the water depth was pretty shallow in parts, but we managed to stay in the channel and not run aground. Momma had the idea to count the number of dolphins we saw on the loop; but we saw over 20 on that first voyage, couldn’t decide if we were seeing the same dolphins in some cases, and if we count only if Momma saw them. We finally just decided to love it anytime we saw a dolphin and not worry about keeping count. However, seeing the wild horses while we passed Jekyll Island was just a little bit cooler than dolphins. Momma needs a better camera but here’s the best pic I can find:
We arrived at Tiger Point on July 29th a few hours ahead of schedule. Maybe we could have left later, but we didn’t know how fast we were going to be able go so we figured better early than late. Terri met us at the dock with some help and we shut off the engines. Momma was excited that we could start the drive home early, but it didn’t work out that way.
We smelled fuel inside the cabin. Poppa spent at least 4 hours trying to track it down without AC and in blazing heat. Momma and I went to West Marine a few times, and tried to stay out of the way. Poppa finally got to a point we could feel safe leaving the boat and start on the 12 hour drive home. Ugh.
Before leaving town, we stopped at Walmart. Momma ran in to buy Poppa some traveling clothes since he’d sweated through the ones he was wearing. A nice new pair of knit shorts, an AC/DC t-shirt, and grape Gatorade set us on our journey back to Louisville. We go to Marietta, GA and decided it was late and we needed to stop. The hotel was right by a Cracker Barrel and not only dog friendly, but also seemed crack head-friendly. We left really early the next morning and I was only allowed to go potty twice. That’s all I’m going to say about that place.
We made it home and did nothing for a few days. After that, we just waited for the boat to be ready and lived like normal land dwellers that don’t have boats…. but dreaming of being on the water.
Lots of love,
