Tuesday – 7^th August

The plan today was to visit and explore Port Clyde and hopefully get a backlog of laundry done in the laundrette whilst we were ashore.

It was a beautiful day with unbroken sunshine a just a gentle breeze and having launched the dinghy we made our way to the dinghy dock next to the general store.

Here we firstly discovered that there was no longer any laundry in the small town, in fact there is next to nothing here except a general store, a bar and restaurant, a post office, a church and several art galleries. You can hire a kayak or take a boat trip out to the lighthouse – but that is about all.

Having said that, we had a great time ashore and found some wonderful people to talk to and did a fair bit of exploration. But first we needed a coffee and opted for the specials in the general store (where else?) and my breakfast sandwich which consisted of a fried egg and bacon in an ‘English’ muffin along with a cup of coffee set us back $1.99 whilst Sarah’s huge (and completely defeating) blueberry pancake and coffee was just $2.29.

We toured the two floors of the store and Sarah invested in a new rug for the saloon and we were served by Bobby who seemed thrilled to hear about our travels and when we went back in the afternoon to pick the rug up, it turned out that she had already found time to view the website and read all about us! (Hi there Bobby if you are still reading this.)

We walked out of the town and followed the road to Marshall’s Point Lighthouse (the location used to film the end of Forest Gump’s run across America – Tom hanks literally did his filmed run up the gangway to the lighthouse and was then rushed to another filming location.   His brother hung around to sign his own autographs though….!) and whilst there we also visited the museum housed in the old lighthouse keeper’s house. If nothing else we learnt quite a bit more about lobster fishing and the dreaded buoys that we have been making such a big deal about.

We stood on the headland and watched a British flagged yacht that we had first seen in Antigua, sail past and into Port Clyde and it was sheer luck that during our return visit to the general store later on, that we met the skipper who was ashore paying for their mooring buoy.

We also had a wander up the only street and popped into a couple of art galleries. The biggest of these was exhibiting works by Barbara Ernst Prey. She has works displayed in the White House and various US embassies across Europe and as we wandered round we met her husband who gave us a personal tour including the private upper floors of the house that were used occasionally as a studio and their holiday home.

Beautiful sunset ended the day and the only slight set back is the large blue bag of dirty laundry…… This may help determine our destination tomorrow. I should perhaps quickly explain that the excess laundry has been caused by us having to unearth our more wintery clothing to cope with the decidedly colder nights and chilly daytime wind! This clothing has all spent a considerable amount of time vacuum packed away in the bowels of Serafina and mostly needs a little airing and ‘freshening’ up and sadly the tropical clothing that has not be designated as rags, is being stowed away.