A bed that doesn’t move, flushing toilets and plentiful hot showers – the first few days on land are always blissful for these three things alone, regardless of the weather, which is just as well as we wake up to a mixture of drizzle, wind and rain.
Because we were so late getting the boat out of the water yesterday, Mike didn’t have the opportunity of even trying to get the bloody buggery screw out of the sail drive seal, and knowing that he won’t rest until he knows where he stands with it, he takes off, armed to the teeth with tools that Craig has provided him with for the job.
In the meantime, with Bill and Matt at work, Rosemary and I go out in the rain to one of her local shops, a rather nice one which sells furniture, rugs, lamps and other stuff for the home. She is looking for two comfy chairs for her office and an occasional table (an end table as they call them here). She finds some chairs and keeps them in mind for the future, but is drawn to a huge rug and a lamp for the table she hasn’t yet seen. My kind of logic!
The rug is priced at $2300 but reduced to just $492, a bargain. The owner, a rather obnoxious character who seems to have a rather lofty opinion of himself, proceeds to knock off another $200 because the rug has a coffee stain and Rosemary manages to get another few dollars off and ends up paying $250. Now that really is a bargain. We want to take it there and then before he changes his mind but he obviously doesn’t want to load it into her car in the rain and offers to deliver it free of charge tomorrow.
Mike arrives back in the late afternoon, flushed with success having removed the screw (with even more heavy duty equipment lent to him by the boat yard staff). The poor thing is cold through having sat under a boat in the pouring rain for hours. If he had been right under it he would have been OK but working on the sail drive, the rain had been running down the sides of the boat and straight down the propeller shaft and onto him. Bless. I make him hot tea. He shows me the sail drive and I pretend to be enthralled. It’s a nice piece of stainless steel but hard to get excited about.
Rosemary has made crab cakes for dinner, and while she is at work again in the evening, Bill cooks them and I make a salad. I now know how to make the crab cakes and am determined to make some myself. The crab around here is so fantastic.
At the end of the evening, I get to meet Lisa at last, Rosemary’s daughter. We should have met in Tahiti but I was lying in bed poorly sick when she arrived at the boat with Rosemary to say hello. Meeting her, with her bubbly personality and good looks, is like meeting a female version of Matt.
Next morning, the bargain rug arrives early and Rosemary gets to work getting the coffee stain out. With one go it is 90% gone. I bet if the creepy shop owner had known how easy it would be, he wouldn’t have been so keen to negotiate!
We had been expecting a visit from Jim and Annie today but the plans changed at the last minute so Rosemary and I go out shopping instead leaving Mike in Bill’s work room, sail drive in hand and eyeing up the vice. First we hit the furniture shop again where I find a table which will do the job (60% off) and Rosemary buys another matching lamp to yesterday’s. Oh how I love spending other people’s money – it’s almost as good as spending my own!
After that she drives me around Middletown then we go into Frederick, a pretty little colonial town nearby. We stop for lunch (crab soup – variation on the crab theme – I hate to be boring) then browse around some pottery and antique shops. After all the rain yesterday, it’s humid today and unpleasantly sticky. I go into a shop to cool down. The shop is called Angel and it sells – everything angel. I’m sorry but it’s a bit weird. The lady in the shop is anything but angelic herself and only just about forces out a hello in reply to my greeting. Maybe it’s my accent, but amazingly my dulcet London tones usually elicit the opposite response. Her ‘objets d’art’ are a mixture of gross and twee and I escape. Hopefully no one saw me go in and my reputation is still intact.
Mike comes in having had a little journey into the countryside in search of replacement screws for his sail drive. He has been to somewhere called Thurmont and the sat-nav took him down some questionable roads laid with gravel rather than tarmac. He couldn’t believe it when he saw people sitting out on their porches, some with banjos. With memories of the film ‘Deliverance’ playing through his mind, he hadn’t stopped!
Bill and I cook dinner again and settle down to watch the Obama v Romney debate. I try to concentrate, we all do, but eventually Bill sticks his nose in a book and Mike and I get our computers out. Bill talks to the TV more than we do but then I guess he understands what’s going on a bit more than we do. When Rosemary gets in I join her in the kitchen. By the time we have finished chatting, the debate is over.
Both Rosemary and Matt are off work the next day and take it in turns to entertain me while Mike goes back to the boat clutching his replacement screws. We leave Matt in the kitchen dealing with a whole side of fillet of beef.
We first visit Rosemary’s daughter-in-law, Cary, with her new baby, Gavin and to my mind, two terrifying dogs. As we let ourselves into the back garden I am told that the dogs are really friendly and not to worry. Rosemary does not know the extent of my dog worrying tendencies so this advice falls on stony ground. The old ‘docile’ one is bad enough as he comes to investigate, sniffing and coming far too close. His jowls are like the ones belonging to the dog in the film ‘Turner and Hooch’ and all I can think of is ‘mind the cashmere, mind the cashmere’ as I pull my cashmere cardigan out of the way of any potential slobber. However, the one guarding the back door, growling and barking enough to raise the dead in his defence of Cary and baby, is terrifying. Cary takes pity (I probably have gone white with terror) and goes around to the front to let us in that way. I am such a wimp. Both dogs are wagging their tails after all. Mind you that’s probably because they’ve heard that British meat is white and tender!! At the end of our visit, Cary locks the dogs away to let me escape.
Next we go duvet hunting at the mall. The very helpful assistant in Macy’s asks me whether we are looking for a comforter or a duvet. When I ask him what the difference is, he replies that they are the same, which rather begs the question ‘why ask me which one I want in the first place’. Actually they do seem to be different – by my understanding and using my eyes, comforters are usually already in covers that cannot be removed. Duvets on the other hand, are always white and you buy covers for them. Simple.
Matt meets us at the mall and when Rosemary goes back home to prepare dinner, he and I stop for lunch then go off to look at the house he is moving into next week with two friends from work. After that it’s a drive into the country and a visit to Harpers Ferry and the Shenandoah River, which causes us to leave Maryland, enter Virginia and then West Virginia, all within a couple of miles. The river and the surrounding scenery is beautiful and the historic town (I can’t remember what the historic significance is now even though Matt explained) is very pretty.
We stop for frozen custard – like ice cream but smoother then head back to Middletown where we are due to meet some of Bill’s family for a drink and hot crab dip at The Main Cup, the restaurant where both Matt and Lisa work. Lisa makes me a killer margarita, her specialty. It’s huge. One is most definitely enough for me if I wish to continue standing! We have dinner back at Rosemary and Bill’s and their son Eric joins us afterwards with Cary and baby and no dogs!
The next day we leave. It’s so sad to say goodbye to Matt although we put off our goodbyes to Rosemary and Bill as we will see them tomorrow at the Boat Show in Annapolis. We try to find a rug on the way back to the boat. Our lovely blue one which matched the salon sofas when we bought it, has now turned a strange green, sunlight and sea water doing their damage over the years. We fail to find anything decent.
Being out on the hard means that I have to shower on land. There is only one and it turns out to be occupied. While I wait for my turn, I people watch. The Cheshire Crab, the on side bar/restaurant, seems to attract it’s fair share of rednecks and I spend a happy 10 minutes eyeing up a couple who could give ZZ Top and the Crankies a run for their money.
We drive into Annapolis in the evening to see Jim and Annie. It should have taken about 30 minutes but takes 90 due to the congestion caused by the boat show but we eventually make it to their house. Diana, Jim’s secretary, is there too, along with a friend of Jim’s, Mike. It’s wonderful to have another reunion. Annie has worked wonders on the house since their return from the rally – the house had been wrecked by a former tenant but now looks lovely. After a couple of drinks we go into town for dinner and although Jim’s first choice is full, we have a lovely meal in his second choice then walk back to the house as we are staying the night with them.
Saturday sees us at the boat show but I have to say the one in Annapolis is a tenth of the size of the one held in Southampton. We see a lovely 50-foot catamaran, the Isara, made in Taiwan. As pretty and well designed as she is, I still see glaring design faults with regards to blue water cruising. As far as I am concerned, nothing is better than a Privilege except a bigger Privilege!
We meet up with Rosemary, Bill, Annie and Jim for lunch. The other Mike has disappeared and Diana is with her sister on another table as they staff can’t fit them on with us. All we really need is the rest of the crew from Ocean Jasper, Bob and Maggie, and the crew from Chessie, Jutta and Jochem, and the gang would all be together again.
We say goodbye a little more sadly than we did yesterday and drive back to Pasadena, still trying to find a rug on the way, again to no avail. Just by us in the car park is a classic Dodge Challenger – Victoria would have loved it.
Kim and Craig are putting us up while we are still out of the water, and although we arrive late, there is still plenty of food for us. Cathy and Robbie join us for a drink along with some of their other friends and we have a pleasant evening, partly entertained by Kona, their large black dog that I am not afraid of at all, who is intent on dismembering as many soft toys as he can.
On Sunday we go back to the boat. I sweep, clean and tidy but an thwarted by the sheer amount of power drill tools and other fixing paraphernalia scattered about the floors which makes the boat look very fetching when Cathy arrives with five of the octuplet children (yes, it’s confusing – I still refer to Kim’s written notes regarding who belongs to who). Late in the afternoon and after a lovely hot shower (and I confess, it was no boat shower) we go over to Cathy and Rob’s for one of their Sunday football parties. The game is on all of his TVs and screen and everyone turns up with a dish of food and drink. It’s a great idea and much better than going down to the local pub. Mind you, I suppose Robbie’s basement IS the local pub!
Unfortunately I decide to do some innocuous stretches first thing on Monday morning and my back goes into spasm causing me to slow down and take copious amounts of codeine to get it under control. It’s infuriating that when you do the very thing that is supposed to be good for your back, it sparks off the very thing you are trying to prevent.
As we leave I ask Kim to post an envelope for me as I don’t recall seeing any post boxes and probably wouldn’t recognise one if it jumped out and bit me. She tells me to leave it at the end of the drive. Not wanting to leave it out in the rain as I didn’t recall seeing a post box there, she looks at me strangely and tells me to leave it in HER post box. “But it isn’t for you” I say, looking confused. She then patiently explains that if you have something to go in the post, you put it in your own box, put the little flag up and the postman takes it away when he delivers to your house. How lovely!
My back doesn’t stop me scrubbing the sides of the hulls – unfortunately/fortunately (mixed blessings) the bloody painkillers have done their work by the time this is due to be done.
The boat goes back in the water right on time and we move her around to the fuel dock for the night. Cathy rings and offers to take me to Costco in the afternoon where I provision our meat and fish probably for the next two months. The freezer had better not go kaput. On top of the stuff that Bodkin Creek Kathy is holding in her freezer for me, it will have over $450’s worth in there. On top of the food, I also manage to find a rug. Hurray! No more mangy green!
The octuplets want one more opportunity to get together to say goodbye to us, and after initially planning it for Jeannius, the plans are changed because the weather turns nasty. Instead we go back to Cathy and Robbie’s where they have done steak, crab bake and stuffed pasta, all totally delicious. What wonderful hosts they are and what a fantastic group of friends. Unfortunately Sean and Stacie are not able to make it and Michelle and Joe leave before I remember to take my camera out!
We go back to Jeannius, sad to say goodbye to more people that have been so kind and generous to us and made us feel so welcome. Maybe I’m not such a boring old git after all. I can’t speak for Mike though!!!
Tomorrow we will finish the provisioning, clean the cockpit and be on our way once more.
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