Progress

It has been five days since George was told that our vessel documentation would be mailed out. We hadn’t heard from St. Brendan’s Isle—our mail forwarding service—that the documentation had arrived so George decided to call the Coast Guard and ask about the status. The person who took his question—not the same person to whom he spoke on Monday—said our request had been received but would take 45 days to process since we hadn’t completed the official form to expedite the process. What!!?! George said he had been told it would be expedited but the person he spoke to this morning said it didn’t matter. It couldn’t be expedited without the official form. We went back into panic mode. After looking into the expediting process and starting to complete it, George called the Coast Guard again for clarification on a point. When he was finely connected to the person to whom he spoke earlier, she said the form had indeed been mailed on Monday. She also sent an email with an electronic copy of the documentation. That is all we need for Click2Clear, we aren’t sure if we need the hard copy once we arrive in the Bahamas. We felt relieved for several hours, then started to worry about why the paperwork hadn’t arrived at St. Brendan’s Isle yet. Was it sent to our home address? Was it addressed with some combination of our home address and the address of St. Brendan’s Isle? If so, it may end up in dead letters. If we need to produce an original hard copy once we arrive in the Bahamas we could have a problem if it doesn’t arrive. We are keeping our fingers crossed. 

Meanwhile—after talking with the Coast Guard—George changed the fuel filters for the diesel engine.  Everything looked good, no water or evidence of bacterial growth. We are hoping that the new filters—along with running the engine at higher rpms—will be enough to get us through the winter. We plan to have our local mechanic remove and clean the injectors next spring. 

We took a walk through town this afternoon and returned to town a few hours later for the First Friday celebration. Galleries and stores were open and there were outdoor vendors as well as live music. Brunswick seems to have taken it hard since our last visit pre-Covid. There were quite a few empty storefronts but evidence of efforts to make improvements. We like Brunswick and wish it the best. 

Working on the fuel filters. 

New pre-filter. 

Diesel that came out of the filter. No evidence of water or debris. 

Beautiful Glynn County Courthouse.