Instant Gratification – Thunderbolt Marina, Savannah Georgia, USA, September 28, 2026
It’s been a slow couple of months with most of our time spent in Isle of Hope Marina or Ohio visiting family. We have had a couple of weeks in Jekyll Island as well and frankly the pace has been nice, but Ron and I have decided it’s time to start ramping things up. There are two events coming soon. First off, we are getting hauled out to get the front of our boat fixed from where we got hit since some other boat wasn’t paying attention and hit us. That happened today and so far, all went well. We hope to be back in the water by Friday if things continue to go smoothly. The second event happens a week from Saturday and that is a wedding for daughter #4. I am hopeful the weather will hold for her since it is planned to be inside.
Next off I thought I would talk a couple of minutes on how Ron and my life is different that the typical American. The longer we travel the more different I realize our approach is. First off, we can’t just order anything we want the moment we want it, and have it delivered via Amazon. Since our address is usually only for a few months at a time, we tend to utilize it while we can the got for months with a running list of items to get when we have access again. An example of this is right now we only have two bowls, 3 plates, and definitely need to have a back up can opener. So, at some point in the next week, there will be some shopping as we start to provision.
Second thing is we have been sharing a car with about 10 other couples at the boat year since no one there owns a car. That means we need to reserve the car anytime we want to go to grocery shop, drop off and refill the scuba tank, or go anywhere. It is a bit of a mind shift from owning your own car and not having the seat all screwed up every time you get in and then must reset all the mirrors. But the upside of that is we did not have to pay for much fuel, didn’t have to rent a car for the whole off season, and it was pretty affordable to rent an Uber of Lyft anytime we wanted to go get a beer.
Third thing, Ron has been working consistently on boat projects for the last few months, and his least favorite is he had to clean out the filters for the air conditioner about every 3-5 days. He also upgraded our solar set up with a new inverter, solar controller, and added additional panels. Now I can run the stove and oven at the same time (but still not the microwave). The upside of doing this is we will likely not need to run the generator much if at all in the Bahamas. Last year we were on the edge of having enough power and this year it will not be an issue with the upgrades. This will also allow us to make water without having to turn on the main engines. We made these upgrades in hopes it would save us on diesel fuel in the future, and we weren’t sure how much longer these types of parts would be available based on our current political climate.
For the next two weeks we are staying in a hotel. This week we are living in a hotel paid for by the insurance company due to the fact the recent boat accident wasn’t our fault. Then next week we will be in Ohio for the wedding and stay in a hotel there. Bad news is we will not have a kitchen. See, these are things most people don’t have to work about, and it makes us much more patient when it comes to only moving at 5 knots per hour.
