Like Deja Vu All Over Again

It has taken quite a while for us to find the heart to make this post. 

We include a spoiler alert: 

If you don't already know it, the Good Ship Mulligan took an incredible, second direct lightning hit while docked at Jekyll Harbor Marina on the evening of Saturday, June 25. Just two days short of a year since her original lightning hit, which occurred 100 miles north of Jekyll at Thunderbolt, GA on June 27, 2010. 

Lightning may not strike twice in the same place, but it sure as heck can strike the same object twice. We are living proof. Despite this new setback, we want to let you know how our passage to Jekyll went and what we did while at our first destination. It was an interesting few days, and we hope you enjoy hearing about it!

We will follow this post with a series that follow our track to Jekyll. And that will be it for while, as Mulligan undergoes more lightning repairs back at Thunderbolt. They say it will be 8-10 weeks (but that's what they said the first time she got hit!). This time may go more smoothly, if the personal attention of the marina owner and staff is any indication. 

By the way, we were not aboard when Mulligan got hit, so both of us are fine. We got a call from friends we'd made at Jekyll Harbor Marina the day we arrived, telling us about the strike. We hurried back from our digs at a friend's beach house on nearby St. Simon's to find Mulligan dark, with a charred masthead, the anchor light housing lying on the forward trampoline (it is normally at the top of the mast), the glass in the battery gauge smoked over, and the navigation station systems labels and lights lying around on the main cabin floor and even in the galley sink. 

Thankfully, there was no sign that Mulligan was taking on water, so we closed her through-hull fittings and left her unlocked so that marina staff could get aboard if by some chance she started to go down, and returned to our beach house accommodation -- a blessing, since there were no lights, water or AC aboard our boat.

Before we left Jekyll in our rented car, our last views of Mulligan were seeing her hooked up to a tow boat and floating off without us -- back toward repairs at Thunderbolt -- like an obedient dog on a leash. 

Captain Dana Ridland rigged temporary running lights and bilge pumps so Mulligan would be "legal" on the water. Here, he does the final hook-up  for her tow. His boat was small, but it had BIG engines.
He estimated the 100-mile trip to take 20 hours, so he brought a mate.

Mulligan is pulled away from the Jekyll Harbor Marina on her leash

We say goodbye to Mulligan as she passes beneath the Jekyll Island Causeway Bridge
on her way back north to Thunderbolt