Urbanna 37:37.305N 76:33.005W
Lotus
Tue 12 Oct 2010 17:30
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A quick stop in Annapolis, just enough time for
John to visit two West Marine chandlers (his spiritual home) in an attempt to
find some new dingy oars. His efforts were in vain following naff advice
from they staff members at both branches, so after a hefty priced taxi ride
he returned to the boat oarless and with his tail between his legs.
We were keen to ensure that we had enough time at
the boat yard in Urbanna to lift the boat and prepare it for a winter ashore; we
knew that jobs would take longer than expected so over the next couple of days
we made swift progress south, enjoying some pleasant sailing in sunny conditions
and a fresh breeze (which was a little chilly).
We were pleased to turn into the Rappahannock river
5 days prior to our flight out of Washington. It would have been easy to
let our time table slip over the previous thousand miles or so. However,
our last few miles were tinged with a certain sadness as the realisation dawned
that this was to be the end of this stage of our trip. Henry and David the
two guys at the boatyard were true to form and welcomed us back with southern
hospitality. Over our last few days in between removing sails, running rigging,
canvas work, the thousand items of crap that we'd accumulated over the last few
months and packing, we managed to fit in a BBQ and a few beers with the truly
friendly folk in the boatyard and had a whiz around on Henrys high performance,
super changed jet ski; we achieved 58mph in about 5seconds and had a ball,
luckily we decided to stop before injuring ourselves (just letting go of the
throttle was like ramming the brakes on and at one stage the g-force of
deceleration forced me to slip forward so that John ended up sitting on my lap
after I'd headbutted him in the back of the head, he said it was confirmation
that I am a 'real pain in the neck').
We pumped, sucked and forced antifreeze into every
orifice of the boat, every pump, toilet, sink and water pipe was filled with
this pink liquid. This was the last job that we had to complete
before waving goodbye to the boat and the fine folk of Urbanna. As a final
show of helpfulness we were given a lift the 50 old miles to the train station
where we caught a connection through to Washington. A two and a half hour
delay saw us rushing for the plane laden like a camel train.
Unfortunately, our hand luggage was checked for weight and found to be too heavy
even after we'd donned all our coats and big boots. Fortunately, the not
too bright check in staff didn't notice when we removed some heavy items, had
our bags re weighed, then simply replaced the items in the bag. They also
didn't notice my extra backpack, the straps of which I managed to hide behind my
lapels, luckily they didn't think it strange when I backed away from the
desk.
We left American soil keen to see folks back home
but also looking forward to the spring when we will return to sail our
trusty boat back to Europe and home.
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