Just Go! : Thunderbolt Marina, Thunderbolt, GA

April 5, 2016
Day 205

We woke up in Darien, GA to find that our fresh water pump had died so we had no water for washing, brushing, or flushing. Fortunately, we had some bottled water we could use for all of those things. Unfortunately, there was no place to get the pump changed at Darien. Fortunately, I had a spare water pump aboard. Unfortunately, the original model had been discontinued and the spare was not a direct swap and I did not have the necessary fittings aboard to rework the plumbing. Fortunately, we were headed to an area near Savannah where there were a couple of boatyards with really good reputations. Unfortunately, the first one I called could not take us because they were booked solid for two weeks. Fortunately, the second place I called, Thunderbolt Marina who specializes in mega-yachts, agreed to try to work us in since our problem was relatively small. Unfortunately, they couldn't do it today. Fortunately, they could do it tomorrow. Problem solved.

We started out for Savannah and naturally reached the infamous Hell Gate, a manmade cut between the Vernon and Ogeechee Rivers in Georiga, at dead low tide. There was already a sailboat grounded in the center of the canal just at the entrance of the canal and the channel markers on each side of the canal were sitting on dry land.

We threaded our way around the grounded sailboat and very slowly proceeded through the canal, watching both depth sounders and the chart the whole way. Even though the sounders stopped reading depth at one stretch, we made it through without running aground.

Arriving at Thunderbolt we got a good look at some of the mega yachts. The yacht below had just had a paint job of the upper decks, not the hull. The paint job was five million dollars!

The yacht below was being prepared for having the hull painted. I have no idea what that would cost. They were erecting scaffolding arould the hull on floats on the water around the yacht. Amazing!