Back in Canada ...

we stayed one more night in Delaware, another nice and warm evening ... but a boring stretch of Highway to drive on the Eastern Shore, and then took off for Canada.

There was a sense of comfort an relieve when we arrived in Canada. Not only was the weather nice when we arrived, and were comparable to the conditions we had left behind in Virginia, but also less police controls, no guns carried openly, more politeness and more smiles and much, much lower prices for vegetables and food.

Canada is like the Italy of North America - and that is the reason we like to come back to our "Italy".

Our gardens are in full bloom, the emails full of urgent messages, and our sailing vessel is awaiting us. And our Spanish/German friends are coming soon!

Ok, our one week of holidays is coming to an end.

We have to take down our "luxury" tent, and head North again. We decided to take the tunnel from Norfolk to the Eastern shore - a $12 detour.

There are some places where you can stop, and this is exciting. As sailors, we always like to look at "openings", "passages", "buoys" ... just in case we will pass through here one time in the future.

The connection to the Eastern Shore consists of 2 tunnels and a couple of bridges.

When we arrived at the fist "parking", just before the first tunnel, we saw an Aircraft Carrier passing through, doing tests with an Hovercraft, leaving and entering the carrier. Marleyne thought that her nephew might like the two following pictures:

Yes, the shrimps were great and juicy!!!! We would have loved to have seafood every day - but this was not easy to do. Our place was not in the middle of a large shopping area, and it was weekend. So, sometimes, we had sausages (awful!), othe times pork (not bad), but not enough seafood to our taste.

But the weather was great!

Being on a planation, we wanted to see the grounds. We took a nice walk to the still functional farm and to the Plantation House (followed by 100-s of deer flies!), and enjoyed the view over the fields, the river, enjoying the smells, and the sounds.




View of the James River to Jamestown across the river on the right.

We had a great and enthusiastic tour guide of the plantation house, and at the time we arrived, we were the only ones in her "group". We had fun and spent a lot of time looking at old photographs, books, furniture and listend to her well researched stories.

It was a very relaxing morning, and th smells of the grass still lingers with me.

We then took the car across the James River to see Williamsburg.

On the way to the ferry dock, we passed Jamestown Settlement, a museum and recreation of the initial settlement, and given its 400th years anniversary, a lot of tourists were there - we gave it a pass.

Williamsburg - well, we had not done our homework on the old town .... and had a hard time to find a parking spot, and to find the Tourist Information Centre - we seemed to have gone in circles for a while.

Williamsburg is something like Rotenburg o. T. in Germany ... but you will have to pay for entering some sections of the town. Initially, it was confusing, everybody seemd to have a knowledge about this town and its attractions ... and what we could see without a U $ 79 family ticket!!!!

Whow!!!! That is expensive!

Essentially, the town is divided into 2 sections: the old town with its stores and renovated houses - free admission - and the old town with its stores and renovated houses ... plus re-enactments (i.e soldiers marching on the street ...). We enjoyed the first part of the town, and the ice-cream!!!!!

Indeed, it was a lovely setting, and we quite enjoyed ourselves there.

And I had to think of my Uncle Heinz in Dresden when we saw this defencive "fence" - here we come, Karl May!!!!

And Marleyne could not resist to work in the garden ... and get thing going ...

We had about a week ... and still hoping that Connecticut might warm up just enough for us to set up our tent there.

But no, even down here the weather was getting cooler than forecasted.

We enjoyed places we had been before, by car, during conference meetings, but laso by boat. We had a great day to reconnect to Baltimore and Annapolis, strolling down streets we had been on before, looking at all the major changes in downtown Balitmore (should now be called Condo-City, expensive condos that is!!!!), and the unchanging character of Annapolis, with our favoured place (the ice cream shop in the harbour) still in place.

It was a good day to wind down and to distance us from the office back home.

We told the Park Ranger that we aere moving on to Virginia, to a place on the James River - and were told to ensure we had reservations!

Reservations???? At this time of the year?

We were doubtfull, but with a weekend coing up, we thought of better playing safe ... and indeed, it was a wise decision. When we booked, the place had only 4 places left, everything else was booked for the weekend. And in our first effort to book a site for three days, we were told that there was nothing left for us - but why not trying again ... just to make sure. Oh well, it worked. We got it - a very nice plantation grounds opposite of Jamestown Landing (the very first english settlement in the land of what is now called U.S.A.

And we shared the place with Boy Scouts, Legion 806, who had taken over the camping site for the weekend (50% of the available sites went to their tents). They were great, having fun, and surprisingly quite ?!

From here we took excursions - Norfolk, Portsmouth, Smithfield, Williamsburg ... and other small places. We had been in Norfolg/Portsmouth before, back in 1991 with the boat, and many other times later, but then we passed through, not spending mucht time in town.

Hence, a good reason to have a new look at these locations.

Norfolk has a large Naval Museum, one which hosts the battleship USS Wisconsin. The visit was free - and security high .... as if anyone wants to steal that ship, or bomb it ...?

We were getting curious and had a closer look at the ship. The interior is not accessible by the public. Inside environmental conditions are maintained at controlled settings to ensure that the ship can be re-comissioned in a short time for another engagement. Initially built for WWII action in the Pacific, it also served in the Golf War after it was re-commissioned.

And yes, it is a large ship .... with very big guns. Marleyne is waving at me ....

On our boat, we carry a lot of heavy chain: 240 feet of 3/8" (10mm). Hard work to get the chain up, and yes, we have a (manual) windlass to help us with this.

Now this ship .... no way I could pull up these 1100' feet of chain (330m), but I tried!

... it must have been tied down ...? It never happend to me before!

We had a good time in Norfolk and Portsmouth and picked up 2 pounds of large shrimps we were going to cook tonight over our barbeque!

Spring Break!

Well, for some, it is well into Spring - for us, we are still waiting. it is May!!! More precisely, we wanted to go on a camping trip May 16, making use of our "new" tent (the one we bought last year AFTER our last camping trip !!!).

But the weather ...? With temperatures in Kingston around 14C daytime (high), and nights around 6C or less (frost warning ...), we are ready for something warmer.

We had dreams to visiting Connecticut - we never have been there, never visited Long Island Sound, and first indication was that the weather there was quite a bit warmer.

But the closer we came to our day of departure, the more the forecast changed, and was getting worse what we had in the forecast for Kingston.

Ok, change of plans, we are easy .... and looked for destinations more south: like Baltimore, or places in Virginia.

And that is what we did, leaving Wednesday early in the morning (the US border takes quite a bit of time because of my "alien" status) ... and arrieved at our destination SW of Baltimore at a decent time.

And YES, it was warm, summer like ... just perfect to wind down.

With a fresh coffee in my hand, ... I will make it into the day!

A new Sailing Season!!!!

Today, La Buena Vida was launched - for another season.

Rustwork, painting, painting, painting, polishing the hull (times 3!) ... and she was ready for another season.

At 20:00 hours, we finally got the crane to take her off the stands and into the water. This time we took a couple of pictures to show the location of the straps. When we lift her out, it is always a guessing game where exactly the straps should be located ... and if they are not in the right place (especially the rear ones), they are in the way of the pads, and we have to put her back and attempt another lift.

This time we took pictures to show the crane operator and his crew where goes what!

And we got Lift-Off!!!

We look forward to our sails! Finally, summer is here again!