White Christmas

Ashford Carbonell, Shropshire, UK

Happy Christmas everyone!!!

Last year sunshine in Antigua, this year a white Christmas with all the cold weather trimmings.

Love to all and good luck for 2010

Tim and Linda

Motor Bikes & Plan Changes

Where Are We: Ashford Carbonell, Shropshire

First the good news, our late summer/early autumn hobby was to learn to ride motor bikes and we were blessed with a superb Indian Summer in which to do it, sunshine, warm weather, superb autumn colours and dry roads made for a great few months. Linda needed a way to get to the train station so she bought a scooter and it was so much fun I bought a 125cc motor bike so we could head off and explore together.

In between commuting to work we had some fun weekends exploring the never ending sights of the area, following up Stonehenge with a trip to the huge stone circle in Avebury. The whole village is surrounded by a ring of monoliths that form a sort of amphitheatre, nobody has any idea why this was done 5,000 years ago and I guess no one ever will, but while not as photogenic as Stonehenge it is in many ways more impressive, as well as benefitting from many less visitors.

The bad news is that we have decided to postpone our return to Matsu and skip this winters cruising. As many of you know my father is very ill, fighting a valiant battle with cancer, and towards the end of October his health deteriorated considerably and we have decided that the best place for us to be at present is here in the UK supporting my family while Dad is nursed at home. He remains in good spirits and is thankfully not in any pain and the good wishes and love that many of you have sent to him and us are much appreciated.

So we are now living in a small village just outside Ludlow in Shropshire where my parents live, and dividing our days between gym and caring for Dad, if his smile and our waistlines are anything to go by we are doing better at the latter!

Safe sailing to all those of you out on the water, we can't wait to see you all again in the Caribbean in 2010.

Happy Christmas

Summer In The English Countryside

Where Are We: Bradford On Avon, Wiltshire

After a long hurricane season of no updates, we thought to avert rumours of Somali Pirates we had better let you all know what's been happening.

We got back to the UK in early June, after celebrating Linda's Birthday with Dave & Donna in Annapolis, Kate & Roger in Philadelphia, Craig & Barbera in NYC, assorted friends in Montreal, Linda's parents and finally the crew of Bofix in Quebec City over the course of a week!

 

Linda had her new visa for the UK and we set about some serious job hunting. After a few phone calls the first task was to buy some smart clothes, so that we would look the part for interviews.  Despite the economic doom and gloom that greeted us we got a few leads and Tim was offered a 3 month contract on the outskirts of Bristol, starting the first week in July.

 

This was great as we could now get somewhere permanent to live and the bills would be paid for summer. Linda soon got work in Bristol too and we were back to the old life of work and commuting.

The summer weather was truly awful, wet, cold and grey but thankfully the few days of sunshine we got all seemed to fall on the weekends, so we were able to make the most of it to do as much site seeing as we could.

 

We had rented a converted barn just outside Bath and within 90 minutes drive there was enough to see and do to keep us amused for years, never mind one summer. As well as site seeing we spent a lot of time with Tim's parents as this was our main reason for coming "home", Dad's health stood up well during summer, they even managed a trip down to see us in their caravan. We also managed to see a few of our long lost friends but not as many or as frequently as we wanted.

The highlights of our many wonderful tourist weekends were walking on the coastal paths of Devon on the perfect summers day, Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral and another superb walk to give us stunning views over the ruins of Tintern Abbey.

The other fun part of summer was catching up with cruising friends from the Caribbean, Linda literally bumped into Loon in the toilets at Bristol shopping centre, and we saw Peter & Wendy from Keesje II on a couple of occasions, as well as meeting the famous Fred the labrador.

As summer comes to a close our thoughts turn to heading back to Matsu and the Bahamas for the winter. Our contracts have been extended until the end of October, and so all things being equal we will fly back to the USA the first week in November.

Back To Reality

Beaufort, NC
34 48.2 N 71 41.0W

Well back to reality for us as Matsu sits on the hard stand here in Beaufort, NC.

We left Rose Island in the Bahamas and had another marathon sail, 4 days and 3 nights again, this time covering the 538 miles to Charleston. We had originally planned to stop after 24 hours in Palm Beach but when we checked the weather forecast it was time to "get out of Dodge" so we had the difficult choice of turning right and following the Gulf Stream on north, postponing a good nights sleep for another 3 days!

The trip was uneventful, sailing in the gulf stream in light winds at 10 knots thanks to the current. The wind held until the last day when it was on with the motor and out with the hydraulic oil to keep topping up our steering which has now developed a leak - while sailing it isn't a problem as we can use the wind vane, but motoring it drips constantly.

We arrived i Charleston on 16 May exactly 2 years since we arrived heading north, that time we were there for 10 days waiting for a strong cold front to pass through, and exactly the same this time around! What a shock to the system, 4 days after swimming in clear water in the sunny Bahamas we were anchored in the brown river at Charleston wearing wooly hats and gloves as temperatures dropped to around 5°C!!

We left Charleston bound for Matsu's summer home on Chesapeake Bay, on what proved to be the worst leg of our trip back, at first the wind wasn't right, and then on day two lots of rain showers followed by the wind dieing. We turned on the motor and tried to motor sail north the remaining 270 miles, but the oil leak was getting worse and we began to worry we would run out of top up oil before arriving in Chesapeake. While we debated this the main sail flogged and a batten broke, then while trying to gt the batten out the leach of the sail tore and we decided it was time to head for a rest.

We changed course, then decided to persevere, then changed our minds again, and then again before finally the dolphins gave us the right advice - we were joined by a big pod and then they all turned left and headed for Beaufort, 20 minutes later when we changed course again heading that way too, they reappeared with 2 of them jumping completely clear of the water right alongside as if celebrating our wise decision.

We made it into Cape Lookout at 1am, very tired and very annoyed at this delay to our plans, but a whisky and a well earned sleep helped a lot. Everything seemed better in the morning sun and we headed into Beaufort to assess the repair - on our way we realised that the only reason we couldn't leave the boat in Beaufort was our insurance policy, we would be 12 miles south of their hurricane zone. After a few phone calls and emails all was decided and w got the green light to leave Matsu here. This makes a huge difference to the trip south in Autumn as we will not be faced with rounding Cape Hatteras on a cold front, and are already 250 miles nearer the Bahamas.

So that's it for a while as far as sailing goes. Our plan now is to head back to the UK for summer and try to find some work - so suits and commutes rather than sun and rum. We promise to blog a day in the office provided we find a job!