John writes:  When we got down to Norfolk, Virginia, we were faced with a quandary. A Royal Naval friend of ours who is based in Norfolk had arranged for us to have a special tour round the latest US aircraft Carrier, USS George HW Bush. However, we were keen to take advantage of the benign weather forecast to get round the infamous Cape Hatteras, and so set off south instead.

However, when we got down to Charleston, South Caroline, we decided to put the boat into a marina for a week and go exploring. And so we ended up driving the 470 miles back to Norfolk for a re-scheduled visit to the Carrier. It was great to be joined by Jon and Rachel, two American friends who also had a special interest in the Carrier.

Launched in 2009, the USS GHW Bush is named after the first President Bush who was himself a Naval Pilot in WW2, she is nuclear powered and can carry a formidable number of aircraft. We were greeted most royally, had our photos taken by the official photographer (see pics). A tour that should have lasted an hour and a half extended to 3 hours. Fascinating.

One of the pics below shows the flight deck. Looks big in the photo, but we decided that when landing and taking off at some 150 knots it wouldn’t seem very long!  Another photo shows the fascinatingly basic “model” system that is used to show the readiness state of each aircraft on the flight deck. The different colours show what is happening to each aircraft. The purple nut balanced on a model shows if any mechanical work is necessary. The $$ bills on the left side are a penalty for when a visitor leans on the table and moves a model! A new touch screen system may be introduced soon. However, we all agreed that visitors might still touch the screen inadvertently, and so we decided that in the interests of modernity, a system would be introduced to pre-swipe your credit card for any penalty you might incur!

Much of the east coast of America from Maine to Florida is incredibly flat and low lying, and we were missing the mountains. True to form of trying to pack in too much, we then set off west to visit the Appalachian Mountains that run for some 2200 miles from Newfoundland to Alabama.  They encompass the Blue Ridge Mountains, and further south, the Great Smoky National Park – which is where we headed. We enjoyed a great morning’s hike in these beautiful mountains. They really were smoky!

However, we had also been invited to meet up with a long lost half-uncle of Anne’s, a friend of ours in England. He (Dave) had suggested that if we could meet up with him and his wife Kathy on Monday evening we could join them - as he described it in his e-mail: “we have a wonderful songwriters' evening at the Sunfire Grill a short drive from downtown Charleston. The food is excellent and reasonably priced, and the people and the music are wonderful, you would find it a real treat”.  How could we resist!  And it was fabulous - great music and really lovely people. We came away with a present of two CD’s, a copy of Dave’s book, and some wonderful memories.