Garattmauryan. We go back.

Garattmauryan. What the hell does that mean?

A long time ago in a state college far far away, there was a group of friends that actually graduated and became productive within society despite their antics within the institution of higher learning.

Eventually some of them paired off and found living together was beneficial. Unions were formed. Rochester NY and the surrounding area  became their base of operations. They all hung out together.
Two outsiders (way out) were eventually allowed to become members in order to fill the voids. The selection committee must have been drunk at the time.

With the new additions the group became... The Garattmauryans.

The name is a combination of letters from the last names of the unions. Garnsey, Daratt, Maurinus, and Bryan. For a while there were just the adults. So called. Sometimes you would be hard pressed to assume adult as a descriptor for this bunch. Without going into lengthy tales of their adventures let's just look at some photos and assume they were clever and lucky enough to live this long without serious mental harm or malady associated with liver disease.

Eventually the group spawned. Generation 2 was born.

Gen2 then created Gen3 models, which are quickly showing signs of their inherited design from the Gen1 model. I refrain from posting Gen3 photos without their parents permission. Gen 2 will obviously scoff at me posting pics of them :)

For over 35 years the Garatmauryan gang, including all generations, has kept their association intact. The frequency of get together's has decreased over time because of relocation to other parts of the country and beyond. Getting the whole gang, including gen2 and 3 together takes careful planning and coordinating similar to a wedding and in fact that is exactly what it takes to get us all together again.

My beautiful God daughter Michelle Garnsey is getting married! Gen2 expands again with the addition of Jason! A nice addition. He fits right in. The gang all agrees that this may be one of the few times where all generations are together again. This is the last Gen2 wedding and possibly the last good location for us all to come together to party one more time. We would be totally bummed to miss it.

Miss it? How could you not go? Well, not knowing where we would really be on our trek south we held off booking flights and rental cars until we were sure we could make landfall someplace where we could store the boat and get a cheap  flight. We selected Grenada as our departure point to head back to NY, drive to Providence, then drive to Rochester, Savannah, and Florida. We started booking.
When we were done making all the reservations for hotels, cars, and planes we were up to five thousand dollars travel expenses. $5k!!!! We can't do that! We're retired! Our whole budget would be wiped out for the year for a three week visit to the states. Can't happen. We had a tough decision to make.

We could continue south to Grenada, fly to the wedding from there and blow the budget, eating rice at anchor somewhere in Grenada for the whole summer.

We could skip the wedding, send a nice gift and our apologies, then spend the rest of July crying over the pictures of our friends holding our grandsons and watching the good times we missed and the beauty of seeing one of our gang starting a new life together.

We could turn around, make port somewhere close to Savannah, share a ride with our daughter to the wedding and continue this journey south in October.

I think we made the right decision. We got a late start this season, the weather keeping us in Dinner Key way too long. This fall will be different. We plan to get through the Bahamas before the winter fronts start playing their games. Christmas in the Caribbean sounds good.

This was not an easy decision. We love our friends and missing the wedding was only a remote possibility. We would have most likely just forked over the big bucks and then figured things out afterward. Cooler heads prevailed (Deb's head) and the option of going back was floated across the salon. Tears flowed from Deb while I sat quietly in shock. It was a rough night of no sleep. There really is no other option. The Garattmaurians go way back, and so are we.

I promise not to whine too much about the ICW again. It's getting old. We decided not to go too far north. The thought of waiting for bridges again chills my bones. We will likely stay south of Charleston and close to Jacksonville in case we have to duck a hurricane. We will be at anchor unless we have to leave the boat. My whole issue with this, and I know I shouldn't care what people think, is that we never got further south than chicken harbor. Top that with my Paranoia Passage post and I feel like people think we bailed out of fear. The fear of that passage is still real but its never going to stop us from going. We would not have traveled this far if fear stopped us.

We were are running out of time anyway. It's already April and getting to Trinidad for hurricane season would have been a push. Having a deadline and rushing is not the safest way to travel. So, think what you want. Come October we will cross to the Abacos and work our way east and south and fast. For the rest of this season we will slowly make our way north with stops in Long Island, Cat, Eleuthera and the Abacos. We should be looking to cross by the end of May.
Cheers,
P


There were so many photos to choose from and combined with our low bandwidth I decided to select at random. Believe me, there were many more pics I could have posted but I didn't want to get beat up at the wedding :)