We landed in Baltimore and spent 2 days at the Annapolis Boat Show looking at Dynema rigging options, and catching up on boat gizmos. Then we took a short hop on Southwest to Atlanta.
We had a delightful week decompressing at my sister's house and catching up with Georgia family. We were happy to pick our car up from the storage facility and find everything working. Unfortunately a few days later I had a minor accident at a stop sign which ended up totaling our car. Fortunately my sister had an extra car--a similar old-but-good-condition small SUV (Ford Escape)--which she was happy to sell us.
We drove from Atlanta to Dave's cousin's house in Largo, Florida, with an overnight stop at my brother's house near Gainesville. Dave's cousin Bryan handles all our mail, so he is always our first stop once we get to Florida. After only a couple of days at Bryan's house, we drove across to our tiny condo in Melbourne. "Home" at last! It's only 700 sq ft, but it looks out on pretty Melbourne Harbor.
We spent most of the first week at home on catching up with Melbourne friends, ordering "boat parts", and seeing doctors...general health (and prescription updates), eyes, teeth, and skin! The eye doctor is warning both of us that we'll probably need cataract surgery in the next couple of years, but other than that, we got a clean bill of health. Whew!
Sherry also got to do several sailing events associated with the Melbourne Yacht Club's Fall Regatta--racing one day in a 420, another day in an Opti Pram, and two days in PHRF competition as crew on two different boats. That was fun!
We also took 2 days somewhere in there to drive to Miami to see a boat a friend was looking at buying, and stopped at Sailing Services to pick up some rigging. We decided to stick with traditional rigging for the time being--the insurance company wasn't very keen on insuring us with Dynema. We ended up bringing a new forestay back in our luggage. The rest of the rigging will have to wait until next year.
The next weekend, I flew to Cincinatti to see daughter Nicki. Dave dropped me off at the Orlando airport on Thursday morning, and then drove to see his Naval Academy roommate in neaby Clermont, and then on to Bryan's house in Largo to hang out with Bryan and watch college football on Bryan's big screen TV.
On Monday morning, he picked me up at the airport, and we drove straight to the Suwanee River State Park, where a few of his Naval Academy classmates had planned a little kayak / hangout reunion. We did two days of down river paddling on deserted stretches of the Suwanee, and enjoyed hanging out with the guys. It was a beautiful getaway.
On Thursday, we drove back to Melbourne just in time to participate in the Seven Seas Cruising Association Melbourne Gam. We managed to avoid any volunteer slots--except for speaker slots. Dave gave a talk on Refrigeration for the Cruiser, and did a Sunday roundtable on Snorkeling and Diving and Photography. We both gave the Saturday night "keynote" talk on Cruising the Philippines. And I proctored the Ham Exams on Sunday afternoon. Another busy weekend! (and for the 4th or 5th time, I said "never again!") But we really enjoy attending the Gams to catch up with other cruising friends.
Then we had another week where we were frantically trying to finish off our lists of stuff to buy...Amazon, West Marine, Walmart, etc. Plus Goodwill, of course, to buy 2 extra suitcases to haul all that stuff back to the boat. We nervously eyed the growing pile of stuff every day, wondering if we could fit it all in, and could we get it in under the 50-lb bag weight limits. We had booked our tickets back on Southwest ("where every bag flies free") to Los Angeles, and Philippine Airlines (which only has a small fee for checked baggage). Then we were thinking about the logistics of trying to travel with 4 50-lb bags, plus a large-as-allowed rolly bag as a carry on, and a "personal item" (an overweight backpack). Spent many a night laying awake worrying about the logistics of getting our stuff back to the boat...
In between all that, we're worrying about taking care of annual maintenance items on two of our rental condos. Big thanks to friends nearby who loaned us several key items, including power drills, a big ladder, and several small items.
Then Thanksgiving--we had decided to leave the car in Florida this year (due to insurance reasons, mostly), and had already booked our flight out of Tampa. Then my nieces decided we HAD to do Thanksgiving in Atlanta. So we packed up our stuff in Melbourne, drove to Largo and dropped a load of it off at Bryan's house, and drove to Atlanta for Thanksgiving, returning to Largo the day after Thanksgiving. We managed to fit in a short stop overnight at another of Dave's USNA friends, who are also cruisers and travelers.
Then a final few days in Largo, organizing and sorting and packing. We thought we had it all packed and then weighed the bags and found that one was overweight by 20 lbs!! We left one piece of rigging and a heavy new bridle line at Bryan's house... But the bags of my special Hazelnut Coffee, the Smoked Salted Almonds, and several boxes of Triscuits made the cut.
We flew to Los Angeles and drove to San Diego for a short visit with Dave's son Chris and his wife Sandy. Fun, but short!
Then back to LAX where we had a long late night flight to Manila, and a short hop from Manila to Davao. Not home yet--we had the bad luck to land on a Saturday in Davao, where the ferry to Samal (where the boat is) is jammed up every weekend. It took us 2 hours waiting in line at the ferry to get across to Samal and finally we were HOME.
Our checked luggage didn't make the flight from Manila to Davao, so it was delivered to us at the marina the next day. We were worried about it sitting around unattended in some luggage room, but once we got it all packed, NOTHING was missing.
Time to relax, right? Nope, we're launching in two weeks!!
Showing posts with label USA 2018. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USA 2018. Show all posts
Monday, December 10, 2018
Monday, December 3, 2018
Around the World in 68 Days
If you can't accomplish your goal one way, try a different way! We just flew completely around the world! (Note: This is not to imply that we aren't still planning to SAIL around the world.)
Hauling Out at Oceanview Marina for a Couple of Months
We decided to do something different for our trip home to Florida this year--fly west instead of east. We stopped for an overnight in Singapore, then 4 days in London and 2 days in Edinburgh, Scotland, before flying across the pond to the USA.
Heading Out on Our Round-the-World Adventure
The Final Third of Our Flight from Singapore to London
We spent our first day in London in the Greenwich Area.
Our Ferry from Downtown London to Greenwich, on the Thames River 
The Cutty Sark (Clipper Ship) Museum
Visiting the Royal Observatory in Greenwich
The Royal Observatory
The History of Keeping Accurate Time on a Ship
Sherry Straddles the International Dateline
(We were amazed to find that 0 degrees Longitude on the cell phone put us about 100 meters to the east in the park.)
Lunch at Greenwich Market
We Spent the Afternoon at the National Maritime Museum
Day Two was spent at the Imperial War Museum and the Churchill War Rooms.
Big Guns at the Imperial War Museum
Old Photos of Bomb Production During WWII
London Taxis
Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England during World War II, spent most of his time during World War II in the Churchill War Rooms, an underground bunker built specifically to house critical government functions in a bomb-proof location.
Churchill War Rooms
The Communications Center and Map Room
After the War Rooms tour, we had an hour and a half to spend before we boarded our "Sunset Cruise on the Thames". So we hoofed it up through the Buckingham Palace Gardens to get a look at Buckingham Palace, and then down to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. With our compressed schedule, there was no time to do more than take a few pictures of the outside of the buildings.
Bobbies on Horses in the Park
The Queen of England's Royal Residence
The Crests on the Gate to Buckingham Palace
Westminster Abbey
Big Ben is Getting a Facelift
We had a lovely time on our sunset cruise. A couple of glasses of wine, some hors d'ouvres, a nice sunset, and a guy with an acoustic guitar singing popular songs...
Our Cruise Ship Arrives(London Eye in the Background)
The Tower Bridge (aka London Bridge) at Sunset
Relaxing after a Long Day Touring
On Day 3, we checked out of our AirBNB and drove our rental car south to see Stonehenge, and visit our friends from s/v Dreamaway in Southampton. Driving on the the left, and negotiating the roundabouts was challenging. Thankfully, Google Maps made it easy to anticipate each roundabout.
Iconic Stonehenge
A Replica of one of the Stonehenge Standing Stones (BIG!)
We had a lovely evening with Graham and Avril of s/v Dreamaway. We first met them in the Tuamotus in 2011. We have cruised off an on together in Samoa, Nuie and Fiji in 2013. We've also met them twice in exotic locations--NZ in 2015 and the UK this year.
On Day 4, Graham and Avril were off early on a prior obligation, and we headed off in the car on our own to the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. We only had a few hours, as we had to get back to Gatwick and dump the car, before taking an evening flight to Edinburgh, Scotland.
We could easily have spent 2 days seeing everything there is to see at the Dockyard, but had to choose only one exhibit to see on this visit. On Graham's advice, we chose to visit the Mary Rose. The Mary Rose was Henry the 8th's flagship, which sank in Portsmouth in 1545. From Wikipedia:
The Mary Rose is a carrack-type warship of the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. After serving for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany and after being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her last action on 19 July 1545. While leading the attack on the galleys of a French invasion fleet, she sank in the Solent, the straits north of the Isle of Wight.
The wreck of the Mary Rose was rediscovered in 1971. It was raised on 11 October 1982 by the Mary Rose Trust, in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology. The surviving section of the ship and thousands of recovered artifacts are of immeasurable value as a Tudor-era time capsule. The excavation and raising of the Mary Rose was a milestone in the field of maritime archaeology, comparable in complexity and cost only to the raising of the Swedish 17th-century warship Vasa in 1961.
A Painting of the Mary Rose Going Over
The outside of the ship isn't really visible (there are other ships at the Dockside for that)--it is the inside that is the museum. Only half of the ship was salveagable--the part that was in the mud. The other half was eaten away by time and ship worms. So the museum presentation is an elaborate cutaway of the ship, with displays of various features at either end. We really enjoyed the visit and could easily have spent several more hours there.
Historical Statistics
A Mock-Up of the Exhibit
The Actual Exhibit (Kept Dark to Inhibit Further Deterioration)
The Cook's Exhibit,With Actual Artifacts Recovered from the Wreck
Coming Next - Part 2 of 3 - 2 Days in Scotland.
We decided to do something different for our trip home to Florida this year--fly west instead of east. We stopped for an overnight in Singapore, then 4 days in London and 2 days in Edinburgh, Scotland, before flying across the pond to the USA.
We spent our first day in London in the Greenwich Area.
(We were amazed to find that 0 degrees Longitude on the cell phone put us about 100 meters to the east in the park.)
Day Two was spent at the Imperial War Museum and the Churchill War Rooms.
Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England during World War II, spent most of his time during World War II in the Churchill War Rooms, an underground bunker built specifically to house critical government functions in a bomb-proof location.
After the War Rooms tour, we had an hour and a half to spend before we boarded our "Sunset Cruise on the Thames". So we hoofed it up through the Buckingham Palace Gardens to get a look at Buckingham Palace, and then down to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. With our compressed schedule, there was no time to do more than take a few pictures of the outside of the buildings.
We had a lovely time on our sunset cruise. A couple of glasses of wine, some hors d'ouvres, a nice sunset, and a guy with an acoustic guitar singing popular songs...
On Day 3, we checked out of our AirBNB and drove our rental car south to see Stonehenge, and visit our friends from s/v Dreamaway in Southampton. Driving on the the left, and negotiating the roundabouts was challenging. Thankfully, Google Maps made it easy to anticipate each roundabout.
We had a lovely evening with Graham and Avril of s/v Dreamaway. We first met them in the Tuamotus in 2011. We have cruised off an on together in Samoa, Nuie and Fiji in 2013. We've also met them twice in exotic locations--NZ in 2015 and the UK this year.
On Day 4, Graham and Avril were off early on a prior obligation, and we headed off in the car on our own to the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. We only had a few hours, as we had to get back to Gatwick and dump the car, before taking an evening flight to Edinburgh, Scotland.
We could easily have spent 2 days seeing everything there is to see at the Dockyard, but had to choose only one exhibit to see on this visit. On Graham's advice, we chose to visit the Mary Rose. The Mary Rose was Henry the 8th's flagship, which sank in Portsmouth in 1545. From Wikipedia:
The Mary Rose is a carrack-type warship of the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. After serving for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany and after being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her last action on 19 July 1545. While leading the attack on the galleys of a French invasion fleet, she sank in the Solent, the straits north of the Isle of Wight.
The wreck of the Mary Rose was rediscovered in 1971. It was raised on 11 October 1982 by the Mary Rose Trust, in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology. The surviving section of the ship and thousands of recovered artifacts are of immeasurable value as a Tudor-era time capsule. The excavation and raising of the Mary Rose was a milestone in the field of maritime archaeology, comparable in complexity and cost only to the raising of the Swedish 17th-century warship Vasa in 1961.
The outside of the ship isn't really visible (there are other ships at the Dockside for that)--it is the inside that is the museum. Only half of the ship was salveagable--the part that was in the mud. The other half was eaten away by time and ship worms. So the museum presentation is an elaborate cutaway of the ship, with displays of various features at either end. We really enjoyed the visit and could easily have spent several more hours there.
Coming Next - Part 2 of 3 - 2 Days in Scotland.
Sunday, October 7, 2018
Air Travel in the Modern Age
We have just completed the air portion of our trip home from the Philippines to the USA. We flew approx 13,200 miles, in 5 legs, stopping in 6 intermediate cities (Singapore, London, Southampton/Portsmouth (by car), Edinburgh, Reykjavik, and Annapolis). The total cost, per person, of our airfare was $1,140 USD, including tax, airport fee, and bag and seat selection costs.
Beginning our Journey in Davao
We are now pretty much halfway around the world from where we started, and do plan to continue flying west on our return trip to the Philippines. So this year's home trip will end up being "Around the World in 80 Days".
In London, the Cutty Sark Museum
For this part of the trip, we picked mostly budget airlines: Silk (Singapore Air budget subsidiary), Norwegian UK, easyJet, Wow, and Southwest. It was quite an effort booking the flights (all online) and trying to maximize comfort while minimizing expense. And getting the airports sorted out, as there are about 4 airports around London, 2 in Scotland, and 3 around Washington DC. Most budget airlines do not fly in and out of "primary" airports, due to the cost.
Flight Costs, one way, per person including seat selection and 1 checked bag and 1 carry-on:
Davao-Singapore - Silk Air - $154 USD
Singapore-London - Norwegian UK - $235 USD
London-Edinburgh - easyJet - $239 USD
Edinburgh-Baltimore - Wow - $410 USD
Washington DC-Atlanta - Southwest - $100
As our trip is for 2 months and several different climates, plus we had a few boat parts to bring home, we chose to travel with one checked bag each, and one smaller "rollie" bag as a carry-on. The budget airlines all have different rules about what is included or excluded in the price of that amazingly-priced ticket, so you have to research the policies on EACH AIRLINE carefully to make sure you don't get any surprises on check-in.
Outside London, we visited Stonehenge
For example, if you pre-book "checked luggage", it may cost only $25 per bag. But wait until you check in at the counter at the airport, and that SAME bag will cost you $75. And usually the second checked bag costs more. And on some airlines (Wow, for example), if you don't also book and pay for a carry-on, they will force you to check the carry-on, at a substantial cost.
An Airport Transit in Iceland
The worst airline, in my opinion, was WOW, based in Iceland. We flew Wow from Edinburgh, Scotland, via Reykjavik, Iceland, to Baltimore Washington in the USA. The price of the ticket shown online included a seat (you can't pick the seat, however), and a "personal item" (small backpack, purse, briefcase), and nothing else. The service on the plane was ALL "pay for", even water (and we forgot to refill our water bottle before we boarded the plane). We pre-paid for a $15 sandwich on each leg, and they wouldn't even serve us a free cup of water to go with it (but you could buy a $3 bottle of water if you wanted). I was really surprised that there wasn't a coin slot on the toilet! The base cost of the flight is very very cheap, but beware the cost of add-ons, most of which you don't find out about until you are most of the way through the booking process AND reading the fine print.
We did, for most bookings, have to pay for our 1 checked bag, and on some airlines, for our small carry-on (specifically size and weight limited on most legs). Most of the budget airlines also make you pay if you want to select a seat. And the price of the seat selection varies by how comfy it was expected to be. Since Dave has such long legs, I usually chose to book a slightly upgraded seat (exit row, or similar). But on short legs, I just booked aisles across. One airline, Norwegian, which I booked through Expedia, I didn't make a seat selection at booking, and I could never figure out how to make a seat selection afterward, even after I created an account on their system. And even if I was willing to pay for it. However, the seats assigned by the system were fine, and that flight actually turned out to be a nice one (new airplane with built-in free entertainment, as long as you brought your own headphones).
One airline I would stay away from, even though they had an amazingly cheap flight for London to Dulles (Washington, DC) is Primera Air. We booked what we thought was a great flight from London Gatwick to Dulles, and then made all our arrangements for places to stay, rental cars, etc around that booking. A week later, Primera emailed me and said that that flight was cancelled, and I could either get a refund, or rebook on the next available flight (2 days later). So then I had to scramble to find an alternate budget booking to/from the same airports.
We ended up opting instead to take a short side trip to Scotland on easyJet, and flying from Scotland on Wow into a different airport in DC. Fortunately I was able to change my (pre-paid, budget) car rental reservation to fly into BWI without additional cost, but I had to pay an additional $90 one-way fee to pick up our rental at BWI and drop it off at Dulles (Alamo via RentalCars.com). Subsequently, on a travel Facebook group, several other people mentioned getting cancelled by Primera. I suspect this airline is running on very thin margins, and if they have problems with only one airplane, they have to cancel a bunch of flights.
At least they warned us ahead of time, rather than cancelling at the last minute, as they did to others about 6 months ago!! Note, I was trying to pull the logo off the Primera Air website, but it won't come up! Maybe we are lucky we got cancelled in advance as the airline may have tanked in the last few weeks.
The booking site I used for airfare mostly was Skyscanner.com. I hear good things about Scott's Cheap Flights, but that's a whole nother way to book budget travel, so I haven't used SCF myself. We also got some amazing car rental deals on RentalCars.com, almost to the too-good-to-be-true stage. (Late Nov 2018 note: Alamo refused my pre-paid rental through RentalCars.com on 11/27 at LAX because of the fact that I am a US citizen with a US driver's license, but I got a full refund from RentalCars.com and a good deal on a rental at the desk at Alamo.)
My still-most-favorite American airline is Southwest. Budget prices, no charge for checked bags or carry-ons, a cheap way to get a good seat (Early Check-in), very friendly crew, and free bring-your-own-device TV on some flights. I ALWAYS check for US flights on Southwest before I check anywhere else.
Our flight home from Tampa to Davao is already booked. Southwest to San Diego to visit family, then LAX to Davao on Philippine Airlines. We have flown Philippine Airlines before and know them to be a good long haul carrier, with 2 bags and seat selection included in the price. The one-way cost per person is right around $1,000 USD for the total trip. It is $100 higher than normal because our flight from Tampa to Davao is right after Thanksgiving. We're set to get back to Davao on Dec 1, so we get going on next year's adventure to Papua New Guinea, on the favorable winter winds.
We are now pretty much halfway around the world from where we started, and do plan to continue flying west on our return trip to the Philippines. So this year's home trip will end up being "Around the World in 80 Days".
For this part of the trip, we picked mostly budget airlines: Silk (Singapore Air budget subsidiary), Norwegian UK, easyJet, Wow, and Southwest. It was quite an effort booking the flights (all online) and trying to maximize comfort while minimizing expense. And getting the airports sorted out, as there are about 4 airports around London, 2 in Scotland, and 3 around Washington DC. Most budget airlines do not fly in and out of "primary" airports, due to the cost.
Flight Costs, one way, per person including seat selection and 1 checked bag and 1 carry-on:
Davao-Singapore - Silk Air - $154 USD
Singapore-London - Norwegian UK - $235 USD
London-Edinburgh - easyJet - $239 USD
Edinburgh-Baltimore - Wow - $410 USD
Washington DC-Atlanta - Southwest - $100
As our trip is for 2 months and several different climates, plus we had a few boat parts to bring home, we chose to travel with one checked bag each, and one smaller "rollie" bag as a carry-on. The budget airlines all have different rules about what is included or excluded in the price of that amazingly-priced ticket, so you have to research the policies on EACH AIRLINE carefully to make sure you don't get any surprises on check-in.
For example, if you pre-book "checked luggage", it may cost only $25 per bag. But wait until you check in at the counter at the airport, and that SAME bag will cost you $75. And usually the second checked bag costs more. And on some airlines (Wow, for example), if you don't also book and pay for a carry-on, they will force you to check the carry-on, at a substantial cost.
The worst airline, in my opinion, was WOW, based in Iceland. We flew Wow from Edinburgh, Scotland, via Reykjavik, Iceland, to Baltimore Washington in the USA. The price of the ticket shown online included a seat (you can't pick the seat, however), and a "personal item" (small backpack, purse, briefcase), and nothing else. The service on the plane was ALL "pay for", even water (and we forgot to refill our water bottle before we boarded the plane). We pre-paid for a $15 sandwich on each leg, and they wouldn't even serve us a free cup of water to go with it (but you could buy a $3 bottle of water if you wanted). I was really surprised that there wasn't a coin slot on the toilet! The base cost of the flight is very very cheap, but beware the cost of add-ons, most of which you don't find out about until you are most of the way through the booking process AND reading the fine print.
We did, for most bookings, have to pay for our 1 checked bag, and on some airlines, for our small carry-on (specifically size and weight limited on most legs). Most of the budget airlines also make you pay if you want to select a seat. And the price of the seat selection varies by how comfy it was expected to be. Since Dave has such long legs, I usually chose to book a slightly upgraded seat (exit row, or similar). But on short legs, I just booked aisles across. One airline, Norwegian, which I booked through Expedia, I didn't make a seat selection at booking, and I could never figure out how to make a seat selection afterward, even after I created an account on their system. And even if I was willing to pay for it. However, the seats assigned by the system were fine, and that flight actually turned out to be a nice one (new airplane with built-in free entertainment, as long as you brought your own headphones).
One airline I would stay away from, even though they had an amazingly cheap flight for London to Dulles (Washington, DC) is Primera Air. We booked what we thought was a great flight from London Gatwick to Dulles, and then made all our arrangements for places to stay, rental cars, etc around that booking. A week later, Primera emailed me and said that that flight was cancelled, and I could either get a refund, or rebook on the next available flight (2 days later). So then I had to scramble to find an alternate budget booking to/from the same airports.
We ended up opting instead to take a short side trip to Scotland on easyJet, and flying from Scotland on Wow into a different airport in DC. Fortunately I was able to change my (pre-paid, budget) car rental reservation to fly into BWI without additional cost, but I had to pay an additional $90 one-way fee to pick up our rental at BWI and drop it off at Dulles (Alamo via RentalCars.com). Subsequently, on a travel Facebook group, several other people mentioned getting cancelled by Primera. I suspect this airline is running on very thin margins, and if they have problems with only one airplane, they have to cancel a bunch of flights.
At least they warned us ahead of time, rather than cancelling at the last minute, as they did to others about 6 months ago!! Note, I was trying to pull the logo off the Primera Air website, but it won't come up! Maybe we are lucky we got cancelled in advance as the airline may have tanked in the last few weeks.
The booking site I used for airfare mostly was Skyscanner.com. I hear good things about Scott's Cheap Flights, but that's a whole nother way to book budget travel, so I haven't used SCF myself. We also got some amazing car rental deals on RentalCars.com, almost to the too-good-to-be-true stage. (Late Nov 2018 note: Alamo refused my pre-paid rental through RentalCars.com on 11/27 at LAX because of the fact that I am a US citizen with a US driver's license, but I got a full refund from RentalCars.com and a good deal on a rental at the desk at Alamo.)
My still-most-favorite American airline is Southwest. Budget prices, no charge for checked bags or carry-ons, a cheap way to get a good seat (Early Check-in), very friendly crew, and free bring-your-own-device TV on some flights. I ALWAYS check for US flights on Southwest before I check anywhere else.
Our flight home from Tampa to Davao is already booked. Southwest to San Diego to visit family, then LAX to Davao on Philippine Airlines. We have flown Philippine Airlines before and know them to be a good long haul carrier, with 2 bags and seat selection included in the price. The one-way cost per person is right around $1,000 USD for the total trip. It is $100 higher than normal because our flight from Tampa to Davao is right after Thanksgiving. We're set to get back to Davao on Dec 1, so we get going on next year's adventure to Papua New Guinea, on the favorable winter winds.
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