With the third blanket we are both toasty warm – just!
Today we are getting hauled out so just after midday we make our way over to Pleasure Cove and sit and wait far past our allotted time of 1 pm to 3.30 pm. The boat they had hauled out before us was the biggest they had ever hauled and it gave them some problems – apparently. I think a long lunch time came into it somewhere as it was very quiet for a very long time!
Mike drives the boat into a tiny slot – it seems that there are just inches either side – the travel lift is in position over the top of us and the bands are underneath – and we climb off and watch the proceedings from a distance.
Photo: Jeannius swings over the water
Photo: Mike watches from a safe distance
Photo: Finally Jeannius is lowered into place on land
Now I’ve seen Jeannius being hauled a couple of times already but it never ceases to amaze me – and worry me! She seems to swing there precariously while the guy operates the lift remotely, performing a 30-point turn to get her at the right angle to get her up the hill and deposit her in her resting place for the next week. By the time the props are in place and they guys clear off, the afternoon has all but gone.
Mike takes the water taxi from the marina over to Kathy and Andy’s house where we have left the car, taking the remnants of our fridge as well for them to add to the stuff already in their freezer.
I pack a case while he is gone, but unsure of what the weather will give over the next few days, it looks like we are going for a month when I finally get it zipped up. Hopefully the Thomases won’t be terrified when they see the size of it!
It’s about 70 miles to Middletown and we are leaving at rush hour. Amazingly we don’t get held up that much as the traffic keeps moving. Unfortunately the instructions I have from Google Maps differ with those being given by the in-car sat-nav system. Mike opts to follow the sat-nav although I prefer Google – it has never let me down, but the driver has the last word – apparently!
We’ve found that the in-car systems are often no where near as good as the cheaper ones you buy and stick on the dashboard, and in Michelle’s car, this is also true. As with the one in Joe’s car, it infuriatingly stops giving you verbal instructions as soon as you leave a main road and some of the instructions are very last minute. She also has a very irritating voice. Oh for the Billy Connolly one which screams (so I’m told) “turn round you fucking idiot, you’ve gone the wrong way”!
By the time we get to Middletown it is about 7 pm. The lady of the car (not me obviously) takes us down a road which goes through the local high school playing fields, and proudly announces that we have reached our destination. I think not.
We travel in circles for a while, taking in the local delights of the floodlit football pitch, sports halls, car parks and school buildings before we eventually find our way back out to the main road. Finding my Google Map instructions just a tad too late I discover where we should have gone and by luck rather than good planning we finally find ourselves at the bottom of their road.
Bill hears our approach and comes to open the gate, luckily for us as I would never have thought of pulling up a knob on the top of it to do so. I would have been there for hours!
It’s great to see Bill and we meet the gorgeous Savannah for the first time, the family’s chocolate brown Labradoodle.
Bill heats up our dinner and I open some Kim Crawford SB, hoping that I drink slowly enough to have some to share with Rosemary when she gets in after work and, holding myself back, I do. She comes in just after 9 pm and amid kisses, hugs and glasses of wine we start to catch up on events since we last saw them in the BVIs last May. There’s a lot so it’s a good job that we have a few days!
Matt comes in a bit later and there’s more hugs and kisses. I can’t help but think that the good and bad times on those three oceans cemented friendships pretty well!
Position: 39 deg 10 min N, 76 deg 31 min W
Distance so far: 2677 miles
(No change to the position or distance – land miles don’t count!)
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