Vancouver. BC.

Vancouver BC.

We flew out to Vancouver on 24th of June and enjoyed great hospitality form David’s niece Tanja and her husband Michael for four days. They wined and dined us and we met more relatives and had a great time.
Vancouver is a lovely cosmopolitan city with a large Chinese population. Granville Island was particularly interesting with its many restaurants and craft workshops. Yesterday we climbed the Grouse Mountain. ‘The Grouse Grind‘, its called. It is a difficult hike from the very beginning, as you start upwards right away with no respite and you don’t stop climbing till you reach the top after 2100 feet. We felt very unfit from having been on the boat for so long, but managed to the top in less than 2 hours. The views from the top was quite stunning, and it was a lovely day.
Today we got on the ferry to Vancouver Island. We had a very pretty trip in amongst the Gulf Islands. We were met by David’s sister Jane and her husband, Brian. It was good to see them again after three years. They took us to a small town, Chemainus, across the island to see a theatre production of ‘Saint Joan‘, and another one tomorrow of ‘South Pacific‘.
It is strange to think that Vancouver island is about the same size as the UK.

Cape Cod, Massachusetts,

Cape Cod, Massachusetts,

We left our anchorage in Hudson River and motored round Lower Manhattan and up East River to be at slag tide at Hells Gate, which is a place where the river divide and can be like rush-hour if you come when there is a lot of river traffic with tug-boats, ferries and tourist boats. It was exiting to pass all the skyscrapers on Manhattan from the other side, pass under the bridges and leave New York City behind us. We took a lot of photos. It was still very hot, but nice an refreshing to see green islands and sandy beaches again. The first night we anchored up in a small bay on the north side of Long Island Sound at Mammaroneck, a lovely quiet spot, and there was no wind at all. However, channel 16 on the VHF radio kept giving tornado warnings for our area. David was almost sarcastic about this Coast Guard message, because we heard weird messages all the time. One of those I remember was a Pam -Pam message from a family who wanted to get evacuated from an island because they were attacked by horse-flies.
As precaution David put out ten meters extra anchor chain, and together we put the snug on the chain. It was dark now. When we were both on the fore-deck, a huge gust of wind suddenly overpowered us, pulled the anchor chain straight out and the boat heaved over. The wind got up form nowhere and the rain started. Within seconds we had readings of 35 knots of wind. To our horror we were now on a lee shore only 100yards away, not nice! The engine went on. The next hour David held the helm and in the gusts he put the engine into gear. Our bearings stayed fixed, as the anchor held. The wind died as suddenly as it came. What a fright we got, though! This is definitely a continent of extremes!
The next day we sailed into Port Jefferson on Long Island and spent the next two days visiting relatives of mine. My grandfather’s two brothers went to America at the beginning of the twentieth century. One of them settled near Seattle in Washington State. The other stayed in New York. He had five children. One of them, Howard aged 86,stayed in Long island with his wife Edith. I visited them 40 years ago. Again this time they showed us great hospitality for the couple of days we were there. Their son, Raymond was a spitting image of my own grandfather. We continued our sail out of Long Island Sound on 13th of June and visited Fisher and Block Islands. We are now in Cape Cod and we are going to leave the boat in a small anchorage Quissett Bay, close to Woods Hole, and fly out to Vancouver in Canada for 14 days and get a new visa-waver on return. In Woods Hole we took the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. We took our bicycles along and cycled. The Vineyard is an lovely un-spoiled island, but definitely a retreat for the rich and famous. We didn’t see any of them , but I am sure some of them saw us!

Fields
We arrived in New York three days ago, and took a mooring in Hudson at 79th Street. It was baking hot, but we had to 'do' the city, so we went ashore and went up to Broadway to catch the Metro to Tiimes Square and from there to Ground Zero, which was very moving. I went to see the Guugenheim Museum But it was closed. Walked across Central Park, saw Strawberry Field and the Dacota House, where John Lennon stayed.
We experienced a near storm in Long Island Sound , when the wind suddenly came up from nowhere, but we were prepared and David held the boat on the anchorage on the engine in the gusts, and 10meters more chain. It was not a nice experience, but it was over after an hour as quickly as it came.

New York

Kære alle fra New York.
Hermed en lille hilsen fra New York. Vi ankom og bor hos Fars fætter Howard og hans søde kone Edith på Long Island New York i aftes og har det rigtig sjovt og hvor er det spændende. Han fylder 86 i morgen den 13. juni og han er helt ligesom dig, kører rundt på havetraktor og går til fysioterapi osv, og har værksted i kælderen og gør ting i haven men kan ikke gå ret langt. Og så har han en søn, Ramond, og haner som snydt ud af næsen på Farfar, altså din far. Edith, hans kone har besøgt jer en gang for mange år siden ca 40 år. De har hele huset fuld af juleplatter og kongeligt porcelæn.
De er bare rigtig søde. Jeg sender billeder af dem senere.
Jeg skal mødes med hans to piger på min alder når vi kommer til Boston. David og jeg flyver til Vancouver .24juni og kommer tilbage den 8 juli. Jeg kommer ikke hjem før til september. Det er alt for dyrt at tage hjem for 14 dage, for at komme ud af USA mens vi får nyt vise . Så det bliver til Davids der får besøg.