UK, Washinton, Canada and back to Virginia

Right Turn
Mike Goldsmith & Kate Richmond
Mon 31 Oct 2011 19:46

Virginia, Canada road trip, and back to Virginia!

Finally, both of us back in the States, Mike having flown out last week to do boy jobs on RT and I flew out to following Henry’s christening. Mike had a 90 minute wait before Immigration “reassessed” him for re-entry so by the time he got to the pre-booked car rental, they only had a convertible Mustang left. Oh dear what a shame! We drove up to Pennsylvania to stay the night with Erin and Smokey, the well-known axe-murderers who we met in a bar on Cat Island in the Bahamas earlier in the year. We had joked with them by email, when they generously said to stay with them, that the problem might be if they turned out to be axe-murderers, which didn’t seem such a funny joke as we followed our GoogleMaps instructions to their house. All was going pretty well, till we turned off the main road in their town and up a road into the forest. The tarmac soon petered out and became a track and the houses got further apart and we carried on and on deeper into the woods to find them in the last house in the road – totally isolated! They welcomed us with open arms and they weren’t axe-murderers at all but really nice people – who we went out to dinner with, and woke up the next morning – still alive! Many thanks guys for a great start to our 2-week “vacation”

 

 Amish wagon we passed as we left the axe-murderers!

 

Then a 9-hour road trip to Toronto. Unfortunately, as my elbow has gone wrong and needs replacing, Mike had to do all the driving. My hero! Had a lovely drive up round West side of Lake Ontario to get to Georgie and David’s house around 7pm. I had texted them 3 times during the day to give them updates on our arrival time, only one of which got through to them about 30 minutes after we arrived! We also met G&D in the Bahamas earlier this year, while they were doing a trip with their yacht “Emma Nuestra” and, of course, their cat, Moggie! David had reheated some horrible food and served some foul wine but we didn’t complain, we’re British!

 

We spent a fab 11 days with these guys, went  to some amazing places, sight-saw, ate things we’d never heard of, went to our first ever Thanksgiving Dinner at their yacht club where David cooked the turkey– (Canada celebrates it earlier than USA), watched Twelfth Night in Stratford (Canada), shopped, got soaked at Niagara Falls and were fed marvellously by David and got drunk often – that was all Georgie’s fault! Looking forward to returning the favour when they come to Europe next year. In addition, Kate did several tours of garden centres with Georgie – where we both bought loads of basil (Obviously, pronounced “bayzil”! (Subsequently smuggled back into USA)

 

CN Tower views including our feet on the glass floor looking down the tower, very scary!

 

  

 

  

 

Mountie-Moose and British moose!

 

 

 

The quantity, quality and colours at this farmer’s Market –Wow!

 

 

 

   

 

 

Black Creek Historic village

 

 

  

 

    

 

 Georgie listening attentively, David waiting for his beer samples!

 

 

 

 

 

Captain Sensible at Niagara

  

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing mural (only 2 real windows) and  Royal Ontario Museum

         

 

Massive mall with atrium roof and interrupting filming of a new TV programme, narrowly avoiding having my camera confiscated!

 

Sadly, we leave Toronto, having had so much fun with Georgie and David. Thanks so much to you 2, and Moggie, of course! Mike, bless him, then drives us round the East side of Lake Ontario back to Pa to meet up with my cousin, Nyli and her husband, Richard. Bear in mind, that I haven’t seen her for 25 odd years! Still we recognised each other – when we finally found them in an amazing wooded community, which felt miles from anywhere. Fantastic house that they’d had built for them, and which arrived over 2 days in 2 halves and was bolted together and erected in no time at all. It came complete with pre-fitted kitchen, flooring, electric fittings and even the curtains already hung! Amazing!We had a great time with them and enjoyed a lovely meal at their community’s restaurant swapping memories of 30 years ago. Another big thank-you to you 2 too.

     

Richard and Nyli                                                                    Nyli with her amazing drinks fridge!

 Little deer we passed on the road to Nyli and Richard’s house

 

Another long driving day for Mike back to Deltaville. We stayed the night in a Psycho type motel in Deltaville – cheap but odd- no one on reception because it was a Sunday and an email from them earlier with the room number where the door would be left unlocked. Think we were the only ones there – very creepy!

 

We check out of the motel,  there’s still no one in reception! Oh well, we’ve prepaid our $50 – worth every cent! I’m back in time from dropping off the hire car,  to step onto RT as she goes back in and we settle down in the anchorage to reacquaint ourselves with home.

 

     

Ready to go back in                                     On her way!

  

                                                                                          Last minute touches!

Everything gets stowed, systems are checked, squeaky steering is solved, new wifi aerial installed and by about day 3 we are ready to go – apart, that is, from a small leak on the loo plumbing which is bugging Mike. He takes it apart, realises we need a new valve and a widget. Next day he hitches in to town to buy them and spends the entire day taking the plumbing apart and installs them. Next day its still leaking but from a different place!  He’s swearing a lot and shouting that he hates this “shitty job”! In order to not aggravate the situation further I spend a day ashore doing the last provisioning, laundry and Skyping with Henry who is now definitely on 2 legs – sweet! Mike hitches into town again for another valve for the new leak and finally by Day 5 we are back to all systems go. Now we wait for a weather window to take us on the 5-day trip to Bermuda. Finally by day 7 it arrives and tomorrow we are off!

 

Much to our mutual relief, as we were going stir-crazy and just a little bit chilly, we leave USA mostly motoring. Mike got us underway around 7am and 5 hours later we finally passed over the tunnel at the Chesapeake mouth, passing Cape Henry, so bye-bye USA. We had a great time here but are feeling the dubious benefits of chip-retention!

 

 

 

A couple of minutes later, I prepared an email to send to Hannah via the sat phone about our position, course etc as I usually do around noon on a passage. The sat phone wasn’t working! Mike had checked it out while we were in Deltaville and it was fine, but now it isn’t working. So, I stamped my little foot and said we weren’t going offshore without our safety net. A bit of discussion later and we agreed we would go down the coast to Beaufort instead. A couple of hours motoring after that we realised we wouldn’t make it there before the weather turned so we turn tail again to motor into Norfolk, Back into the Chesapeake! Putting the anchor down  at just gone 11pm. Cocoa for elevenses because it was so cold this morning and Pastis for Mike once the anchor was down had relieved some of today’s irritations but the fact remains we are still in USA!

 

Next morning, Mike finds the damaged bit of cable and tries to repair it, but this is the 3rd join he’s had to put in the cable so, not surprisingly, it didn’t work. Plan formed, call Mailasail UK and get them to ship us out another cable to Deltaville Marina, so back we go! Maybe there is time for some more chips after all!

 

Amazingly the  cable arrives the next afternoon so Mike fits it and – guess what?- the phone still doesn’t work! We spend the weekend and most of Monday researching and, eventually, we track down a recon replacement. Its destined to turn up tomorrow. Watch this space! We had a lovely evening in the warm at Captain Bill and wife Mary’s home on the side of the creek. They very kindly took pity on us and fed us a fabulous lobster pasta casserole and we dinghied back slightly the worse for drink to our freezing boat. We’ve been tucked up in bed by 8 most nights, me still with my hat on and most of my clothes, as it is very, very cold! Can’t wait to get over to Bermuda where the temp is about 15 degrees higher than here!