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After an epic journey half way around the world the big case containing all our possessions from Savoir Vivre has finally caught up with us.  Despite modern communications trying to get it moved from a small island in the Pacific, via Sydney and Los Angeles, to catch up with us here proved quite a challenge.  We eventually managed to gather sufficient paperwork to placate US customs and then hired a cargo van to go to collect it ourselves from Baltimore.  When we arrived at the shipping company we were told that although they had definitely had it the day before, they had now lost it.  We asked if they thought it could possibly be the large wooden box sitting on the tarmac outside their front door with TELFER written down one side in foot high letters?  Fortunately it was. 

 

 

                        

 

Back on the dock it was like Christmas.......with all sorts of goodies re-appearing which we had forgotten packing back in November last year.  Moving so much more of our own stuff on board really makes Bamboozle feel even more homely. Lucy has got her piano keyboard back and I have been re-united with all my Patrick O'Brian novels so everyone is happy.

 

Since then we have moved across to the much quieter "Eastern Shore" of the Chesapeake, a beautiful cruising ground with unspoilt old colonial towns and hundreds of little waterways to explore.  One of my favourite things is the magical sound and sight at dawn and dusk as huge skeins of Canada geese honk their way across the sky.  We are currently tucked up in a very snug little creek (try zooming right in on the Google earth map to see what I mean) to shelter from a few days of wet and windy weather currently passing through.  This is serious blue crab country and last night we were invited by the other yacht in the anchorage to join them for dinner as the local waterman, who fishes the creek, had given them a pile of crabs.  The two French Canadians onboard turned out to be a hog-farmer who has spent the last 15 years building the boat in his yard, miles from the sea, and the accordion playing retired Canadian Ambassador to Algeria!  We spent an entertaining evening eating crab cakes and trying to sing French and Quebecois folk songs along with the accordion.  Living this life you never quite know who you might meet next, yet special evenings such as this can still sometimes catch us unaware.