Northbound Again

Tuesday morning we headed back into downtown Norwich, to have a bit of a look around the city centre itself, and to visit the Family History Centre. The city seems to have at least, and sometimes several, churches in each block.....most of them very imposing, with spires and turrets. We walked around a bit, and found the Family History Society's building. Here, we were made welcome, and given a tour of the facilities. None of the family trees they have on record seem to match ours, but they do have a lot of access to historical documents of all kinds, most of which are available online, for members. So we joined up and became members. Then we walked around the town a bit, trying to find a pair of sunglasses for Linda, and just generally being tourists. By lunchtime it was time to move on. We bought an apple and an ice-cream in the market (lunch!) and headed on, driving back past Swaffham and then turning northbound. All through Norfolk and the trip into Lincolnshire, we passed flat agricultural land, well ahead of our fields back home. We stopped for the evening in Lincoln, which, I'd like to say, was named for my gt-nephew – but I don't think anyone would believe that! It's called “Historic Lincoln”, because of all the takeovers and regimes the area went through – but from what I can see, almost all of the UK is able to claim a great deal of historical authenticity!

We continued northbound on Wednesday, passing places such as Grimsby, Whitby, and other places similarly named back in Ontario. Much of the coastal route we followed was still several miles from the North Sea, so we mostly just got peek-a-boo views of the ocean, but still enjoyed the winding, narrow roadways with fields interspersed with little villages. So far, we've seen far more sheep in the fields than we'd expected. In fact, I swear there are many more sheep here than in New Zealand! A big factor in this, I believe, is the foot-and-mouth disease epidemic of a few years ago, when many of the cattle farmers were forced to kill off their herds, and turned to sheep instead. At any rate, we bypassed the mostly industrial, and large, city of Newcastle Upon Tyne, then turned back along the coastal route. Although we liked the village of Amble, but accommodation was all taken, so we were referred to the next village north, where we found a little B&B in Alnmouth (at the mouth of the river Aln!). While walking around the streets there, we met a fellow researching the same family line as the ones we'd been researching in Preston – a possible cousin! While standing in the street chatting with him, we were introduced to many of the locals, all out walking their dogs....but we eventually had to leave for a warm meal as it was quite cold outside, with a wind blowing in off the North Sea.

Thursday found us leaving England, and back in Scotland, headed for Edinburgh. Before leaving, however, we stopped to view a castle at Alnwick, which my new-found cousin had recommended. It turned out to be quite impressive, and some of you may remember details of it from the Quiddich matches in the first Harry Potter movie.

Quiddich Anyone?

With that stop, and a leisurely drive in the countryside, over a wide area of moors, where even the sheep won't graze, we entered Edinburgh in early afternoon, booking into our hotel by 4PM. That left us time to walk around town a bit, viewing the very imposing castle perched on an extinct volcano, and walking the “ Royal Mile”, which is a major tourist roadway extending from the Castle to the old royal residences a mile away.

Edinburgh's Castle perched above the City

There are lots of whisky shops here, with a selection of hundreds of choices. A bit of a challenge! There is also a locally celebrated dog, Bobby, who, after his owner died, continued to stay by his master's grave for 12 years as a loyal companion. Several shops and pubs have named themselves after this dog, and a statue memorializes him.

Bobby, memorialized.

Following a pub dinner with some local ales, and a bit of a wander, our feet were starting to get sore. We made it back to our hotel in time for a late cleanup, and then off to bed.

Friday we had a choice to make – with our limited time here, we decided to take our laundry to a laundromat nearby who would do it for us, leaving us more time to explore. The Scottish Records Office is also in Edinburgh, with all of the Parish and Genealogical records centralized here, rather than in various county offices and parishes, as it was in England. However.....almost all of these records are also available online – so we decided to give the genealogy a bit of a break, and we did the “Tourist Thing”. We walked into the city and took a tour bus, with a guide, to get the feel of the city and to learn about it in our limited time. Perhaps it was the noise of the city as we rode around in the top of an open double-decker, or maybe it was the scottish accent, or maybe it's just my very old ears – but I had a bit of a problem understanding the whole “spiel” of the guide, so we took the same tour a second time. By then I'd adjusted a bit to the accent, and got most of it! I managed to get a taste of some whisky while visiting a shop, and ended up getting 3 small bottles of single malts which I'd never tried, but was assured, based on my present tastes, I'd enjoy. Linda and I actually did enjoy them....so now I'm in a quandary as to what bottles to bring back with us. More tasting is surely in order! I was also tempted to get a kilt here, but at least for now, my practical side (Linda) has over-ruled that temptation.

Obviously, we didn't have time to see everything here, but we did manage to go through much of the National Museum, which has an extremely good presentation of Scottish history. We made it back to our laundry by 6 PM, in time to get our laundry – and then had our supper at our hotel.

By Saturday it was time to continue on, bound for Aberdeen. On our way out of Edinburgh, we crossed the Firth (a bay at the mouth of a river) of Forth (the Forth River) on a very impressive bridge. I'd promised Stan, a friend who'd seen us off in Vancouver, that I'd look for his cousins' cottage on the northwest side of the RR bridge there – but – sorry, Stan – I couldn't see it. Must have been the pouring rain, or the other 5 lanes of traffic passing me by! We entered Perthshire shorly, and then turned inland as we drove north, ending up in Pitlochry by 11AM – just in time for a tour of the Edradour distillery. This is the smallest distillery in Scotland, with a good reputation for fine whisky, so we had to check it out. A very good tour, and a tasty sampling! We even ended up purchasing our first bottle to bring back, a cask-strength whisky which can't be found in Canada. We continued on into the highlands, crossing into Cairngorm National Park, and scenery which I'd always considered to be typical of Scottish Highlands.

Driving through the Highlands in Cairngorm Park.

At the north end of the park we found ourselves passing the village of Braemar, where the castle for the Clan Chieftain of the Farqhar Clan (of which the Finlayson clan is a sept, which we are researching). The Earl's Hunting Lodge/Castle is here, so being an official Finlayson, we had to stop and see it. I was even asked to sign the guest book as a visiting Clan member.

Our "Finlayson Family Hunting Lodge"....seat of the Clan Farquharson

Sunday was another day of looking for kin – this time, Linda's. Her father comes from a town near Aberdeen, a place called Peterculter. We contacted some of her cousins, and then headed into the area to explore a bit. At the churchyard, we found some of her long-lost ancestors' headstones, overlooking the Dee River. Then we visited her cousins, Sid and Mary, and joined them for a pub lunch before visiting the Family History Centre and the graveyard to locate a few more kin. Several hours of visiting at their home, with some old family photos, and we headed back into Aberdeen for the evening.

Today is Monday, 30^th May. Internet useage is reasonably expensive or not available, at least where we've been stopping.....so this ended up being a long entry on the blog.....not sure if this will continue, but I'll try to update when I can. We went into Aberdeen itself today, to have a look around the Granite City, and to visit the city Family History Centre, where we found some books and records pertaining to Linda's family. By afternoon it was time to find another distillery – this time to Glen Garioch (pronounced Glen Geery), for another wonderful tour, and several samplings of their whisky. Back to Aberdeen for the evening, with just enough time to get this Blog updated finally.

Roaming the Roman Ruins, then – Religion!

A piece of the Wall.

Today, Thursday, was a reasonable day of sun and cloud, so good for a bit of touristy stuff. Off to the north, to Carlisle, and then east to find the remains of the Roman ruins, Hadrian's Wall. There are only a few sections left partly standing, having been torn down over the last 1700 years for abbeys, churches, farmhouses, and fences. But still an interesting site/sight to see. We chose two of the old Roman Forts, of Birdoswald, and Housesteads, both very close to the centre of the country – in fact, we passed by the middle of the UK by only 1 mile. We walked around the forts and along portions of the wall. Others we met were walking the entire length of the wall – 77 miles! Our driving took us over some nice hilly, twisty roads - very popular with bikes roaring around the hairpin turns, and obviously enjoying the drive. Back by early evening, we cooked up some lamb chops for dinner and packed up our stuff for leaving the next morning.

Friday morning we left early (0700 is early for me), driving south to the town of Preston, on the outskirts of Manchester. The countryside became less hilly and more industrial and busy as we approached our destination. Here we hoped to track down some other ancestors at the Preston Records Office. We found the office thanks to the (almost) never-failing directions from Thomasina, the GPS, and were logged in researching the Parish Records by 0930. The entire day (until 1600, anyway) was spent looking at microfiche and microfilm documents, and copying the pertinent ones. We did find a few clues about my forebears here, but a day wasn't quite enough to be finished. A second day in Manchester probably would have helped. But....no such time! Back to check in to our hotel for the evening, which we'd located online for £29.00 per night (very reasonable). So far we've stayed in two Premier Inns, at this price, and find them extremely good value for the money. They also have a pub, with pub meals, also reasonably priced.

Saturday is not a good day for researching in archives, so we drove east and south across the country, bound for Norfolk County, where the Jarrell roots are to be found. This area has been a brick wall/dead end for my genealogical study so far, so hopefully we can make some progress here. Driving north/south in England is pretty straightforward, and most of the motorways and highways are set up for this, but east/west entails a lot of weaving and secondary roads. As we proceeded east, the hills disappeared, and by the time we were approaching Norfolk, it was flat agricultural country. We arrived at the small market town of Swaffham and found a nice little bed and breakfast, the “Horse and Groom”.

Our B&B - the "Horse and Groom"

It was only 2 so we had a chance to wander around the town and take in the old-country ambience of the town, and walk through the farmers market, as well as visit an eclectic local museum. Apparently the famous Carter of Egyptology, and his family, hail from here, so there is a large section devoted to him and Egypt, as well as to the local area. We had dinner at our B&B and then walked around town for a nightcap at a pub, before retiring.

A Typical pub (King's Arms)

Sunday found us well-rested, and following a huge English breakfast we took to the car to explore the area where my gt-grandparents and family lived before travelling to Canada in 1841. Most of our Jarrell, Tooke, and Burton lines were all baptised, married, and buried in two churches near Swaffham, so we set out to find them. 3 miles away we found the village of North Pickenham, and the church we were looking for.

Typical roadway - more of a lane- with not much room to pass! Speed limit here is 60 Miles per Hour!!

St Andrew's Church here was still having a service, so we walked around the graveyard surrounding the church, looking for familiar names – to no avail. Then I introduced myself to the Vicar, who turned me over to a couple of the church Wardens, and was given a list of the known graves at the church.

There are Ancestors here somewhere!

The other records have been sent to the records office in Norwich, where we hope to research further on Monday. The list was only of recent burials, however, and they had no idea of any of the older locations of graves (1824 and older, which is what I needed). Ah well....it was a photogenic church, at any rate. I got directions to the other church of interest, only 1.5 miles away, at Houghton-on-the-Hill. The church is all that is left of the community, and it is being restored from several decades of disuse and decay. The church dates back 1000 years, and has murals dating that far back, inside. We again examined the gravestones carefully, but still no luck on finding our people.

A doorway into the 1000-yr-old church.....I'm not tall, but I would have been, then!

That pretty well covered the family I knew about, but there is one other Jarrell group in Canada, who settled in Kingston at the same time as our line was arriving. They also come from Norfolk, so it behooves me to investigate this line as well, to try to prove, or disprove, a connection between the family lines. They come from Shelfanger, about 20 miles further east – so off we headed. Same story, different church. So we've drawn a blank from the Religion – at least the churches.....perhaps Monday's researching of records will change that.

It was still early afternoon, so we continued our scenic drive of Norfolk by heading for the main seaport – Greater Yarmouth. Here we discovered that the seaport has mostly now become a holiday resort town, modelled on Blackpool, or Atlantic City. We strolled along the beachfront promenade, but although the weather had dried up and warmed a bit, no-one was partaking of the water or beaches. Miles of touristy come-ons assailed us along the walk, but I just wasn't up for Bingo, Miniature Golf, or a ferris wheel at the moment. So back to the car, and on into Norwich, the county town capital, to find our hotel. Another great internet bargain, and very nice and clean. So now we're all set to go into town on Monday morning, and research the records.

Monday dawned bright and warm, and off we went into Norwich (again – the “W” isn't pronounced.....it's Norrich) to search the records. It was a full day of microfiche and film, but we made no great discoveries, mostly confirmation of the data we “sort” of had. At any rate – Praise God for Religion – without it, there likely wouldn't have been any of these records, and if there had, they may not have been readable!

By 4pm we were as done as could be, so left for the hotel, having a beer at the bar before a roast dinner at the Carvery across the street. We hope to find a bit more data at the genealogical society in town, tomorrow morning, before starting our trek northbound again, touring a bit of northern England before we re-enter Scotland in a few days.

Missing Kin

Tuesday morning we woke up to a cold, wet and blustery day.....a very good day to spend mostly indoors. So with a warm bowl of porridge in our bellies, we set off for Kendal, once again, to try and complete our paper record search. We managed to get there a bit earlier this time, and were able to use the free parking available for early risers like us! The rest of the day was spent poring over microfiche records, and also very old paper and parchment documents, all relating to the parish and church bishop's records. By 4pm we were feeling quite cross-eyed and tired, but had accumulated almost £40.00 in photocopying costs....quite a haul! Much of the material we got was confirmation of what we already knew about our family, but sourcing and proof is everything in genealogy. We did find a few new gems, however, including birth and wedding records for my 6x gt-grandparents, Thomas and Isabell Waistell. The drive home was easy – by now we knew the way. And by 5pm we were back at the pub at our resort, enjoying a pint before dinner of pizza. Our jet lag is still obviously with us, though, as we were propping our eyelids open by 8:30 – so off to bed by 9:00pm.

Wednesday, today, was a mixed bag for weather, but much brighter – so we decided to further investigate the “old stomping grounds” of our ancestors, and to try a bit of “graving” (finding and photographing relevant gravestones). Our research indicates that our principal concern should be in Warcop, Sandford (only 1.5 miles from Warcop), and two other towns within about 5-6 miles of each other – Crosby-Garrett, and Kirkby-Stephen.

Apparently the Red Squirrels around here are something to watch for....vicious? really cute???

I think maybe just endangered - so don't run them over! ...... We didn't see any.

The roadway led us into Sandford first – a sleepy little hamlet (it even has a pub – closed on Wednesday, though). We saw no-one there, and ended up just passing through, continuing on into Warcop. Entering the village is the parish church where many of our ancestors were baptised, married, and buried. There is a graveyard around the church, but most of the old ones are unreadable, and we were unable to discover any buried kin from the 1700's or early 1800's.

The Parish Church at Warcop, where we believe many of our ancestors are buried.

A cousin, Jim Westell, had advised us to find a gentleman named Gregson, who was a 6^th generation grocer in Warcop. His shop, however, was no longer open, and his museum operation above the old store is open only on appointment (which we didn't have, and couldn't get in time – Mr. Gregson is apparently ill at the moment). Ah well – continuing on, we drove the very narrow and twisty lanes to Crosby-Garrett, and investigated the local church here. Some of the gravestones here were in better, more legible order.....and we may even have found a couple of kin buried here, although I haven't fully checked out the details yet. The church appears to be quite old, and the scenery around it very picturesque.

The village of Crosby-Garrett. The aqueduct in the background is a bridge for trains.

We decided to try a laneway leading another mile and a half, to the village of Waitby, but the road/lane was only as narrow as the car, and about half a mile into it, we met a tractor coming the other way, towing a trailer. With rock walls on one side, and a hedge on the other (not even enough room to open a car door here), we had to back up the half-mile to give the tractor room to pass – not an easy task when I'm used to reversing from the other side of the car, usually! So we decided to give Waitby a miss (could be more tractors out there!), and continued on the normal narrow roads to Kirkby-Stephen for a look around, and a bit of fish and chips for lunch. A short walk around the town, and we visited the son of Mr. Gregson from Waitby, the son now running a grocer shop in Kirkby-Stephen. He confirmed the details about his dad, and wished us well. So back to our accommodations again, in time for us to catch up on our accumulated laundry chores, with time for a quick Blog entry (this is it). It may be a couple of days before we can get back to another entry, but we will see how time and wi-fi availability goes!

The Quest for Kin, Celts, Casks, Kegs and Kilts

Apologies to all – I know I promised to get this Blog going on departure, but it's been a few days with very little time, and not much internet either. But now we are settled into our timeshare in Cumbria for a few days, and there is wi-fi at the bar (very convenient!) Linda actually got started on a journal, and being lazy, I've borrowed the first few days from that. So....here goes:

Fri Jun 13,2011

4am Glasgow... awake....time to start the journal?Thanks to Tony and Barb for car sitting and the lift to the airport.Thanks to Bill and Diane for the pickup at the ferry and the wonderful dinner with old Aquanut buddies Stan and Bruce invited too. That Glenmorangie cask-strength blew me away, Bill, particularly with the few drops of water releasing the flavor. Had no idea that would happen. Wow!

Flight over uneventful. Crowded as only charters can be. Watched three movies en route, none of which we'd recommend......The Green Hornet, Burlesque and Gullivers Travels. Flight arrived early 04:15 am which is about 8 pm home time. Took awhile to get through immigration as only the night staff was on but everyone was in a good mood as to us it wasn't really 4 am! As we couldn't pick up the car till 9 am, we decided to leave our luggage at our hotel and as per their website, we were able to walk to our hotel a scant 10 minutes away. They locked away our suitcases and we killed time having breakfast in their dining room before returning to the airport to get the car which we then left in the hotel parking lot as we felt we were too groggy to drive.

This is our little diesel Ford Fiesta, (gives 60 mpg so far)

To fill the day, as we couldn't check in to our room till 2 plus we wanted to try and get into the local time zone, we took a bus to town and tracked down an inexpensive cell to use en-route.

After that we joined a double decker bus tour of downtown Glasgow and finished up with our first (of what no doubt will be many), pints before returning to the airport and the walk back to the hotel and checking in.

Glasgow has a great history of shipbuilding, with LARGE Cranes (BFC's) like this one!

We were starting to fade, so succumbed to slumber.

When we first found the website for the Premier Inn Hotel chain advertising accommodation at a mere 29 pounds a night we were a little nervous but so far we are totally impressed. The building is new and offers your basic room (eg no wasteful little soaps and shampoos although there is a body wash dispenser), and is clean, quiet (despite being so close to the airport and motorway) and not overly hot like so many hotels. Hopefully we'll enjoy their other locations we've booked as well. Apparently there are over 500 sites in the UK. So thumbs up for the Premier Inn and thumbs down for that brew we tried which we both found had a VERY strange flavour.....“St Andrews” by Belhaven.

Sat May 14 – Broom in bloom and leaping lambs…

The joys of jet lag. Couldn’t stay awake past 8:30pm. Awake at 4:30am. Staying at a lovely little B&B in the town of Dalbeattie. Had a good day yesterday as Don got used to our car, driving on the wrong side and being told where to go by “Tomasina” Tom Tom (instead of by me, for a change). He’s convinced all women like to tell you where to go.:-) BTW thank you Ray and \Kathy for the use of your GPS. It’s wonderful! Except when you miss an exit and it insistently tries to get you back on course sometimes going the wrong way on a one-way street!

To break ourselves in we headed first to the west coast from Glasgow then at Ayr (Rabbie Burns territory) turned south through the lovely green rolling hillside spotted with many white dots that occasionally spilled out over the road and became mother sheep with lambs.

The broom is in bloom making a gorgeous contrast of orange against the green of the landscape. Spring – life is in the air!

Sheep, watching us watch them.

The town of KirkcudBright is on the sea (Solway Firth)....so we stopped for a bit of a walk around, visiting our first castle, and then the marina, where the boats were mostly sitting on the mud due to the low tide.

Our First Castle, at Kirkcudbright.

Our First Abbey, founded 1142.

Local Marina at Low Tide.

Interesting Sign at the Marina.

We checked in to the Kerr Cottage B&B in Dalbeattie and learned that the man of the house had gone off on his first sailing expedition with some friends to sail around Skye. Alas the weather was so poor they were having a bad trip. Of course this made Don green with envy and he was sorry to not be able to hear of the fellow’s adventures. This area seems to have a bit of a sailing community as well. The large tide was out as we walked around the shore looking at bilge keeled boats all sitting on the sea bottom.

Kerr Cottage B&B

Liz, the hostess of the B&B told us that many of the houses in the town were built of local granite which led to the nickname of the town as the granite village (in contrast Aberdeen is the granite city) Their house had been built in 1826 and had remodelled beautifully without losing the old world charm. We also learned that the first officer of Titanic had come from this town. For breakfast Don sampled his first blood pudding which he very much enjoyed. Haggis was also on the breakfast menu, something we had previously only had for dinner.

We were off to Caeverlock castle and arrived to learn they were having a re-enactment that day. A bit of luck as we were able to chat with all these characters who were reliving the lifestyle of medieval times. Great fun. The castle itself was most impressive being unusual in being triangular and complete with moat. It’s in fairly decent shape and one was able to imagine how these ancestors may have lived. They must have been very tough for one thing as the wind whistled through the unclad windows and the only heat would have been the fireplaces.

Continuing on we heard on the radio that BBC 1 was having a huge concert in Carlisle with such stars as Lady Gaga, the Foo Fighters, Bruno Mars (and many more) performing. As we had to to through Carlisle on our way to the timeshare we anticipated slowdowns on the highway but this didn’t materialize as the concert was on the other side of the town.

We went into Penrith to purchase a few groceries for our upcoming week at the timeshare. It was a Morrison Superstore and incredibly busy possibly because it was a Saturday. It’s always fun to see what kind of items are sold in different countries. The food items seemed to us to be quite reasonable, compared to home prices.

We found the timeshare location about 8 miles away and checked in to one of the more unusual locations we’ve ever traded to. The entrance floor had one room with bunk beds, a Master bedroom with a double, and a tiny bathroom. The next floor had a room with 2 sofas, coffee table and large TV. Otherwise - bare. Across the hall is the kitchen and eating area. Then up another flight of stairs was another tiny bedroom with 2 singles. I’m sure the sofas made up into beds, so the place could probably have slept 8-10 people with this one tiny bathroom.

We managed to stay up till 9 pm before flaking out and slept all the way to 5:45. Progress with the jet lag. We cooked a breakfast of cut-up orange and strawberries with porridge which was much creamier that what we have at home, and followed up with instant coffee which seems to be a staple here.

Sunday 15 May

Time to explore the home country of some of our ancestors, the Waistell (Westell, now) family. We drove east about 20 miles, stopping in to view a little church and graveyard in the town of Temple Sowerby, where my gtx3 grandparents were married. As far as we could see, however, none of the family is buried here. Then on, past Kirkby Thore to the village of Warcop where most of our ancestors hail from, before leaving for Canada in 1835. The village is now a military training centre for the British Army, but still has narrow streets and beautiful old granite homes. The church and graveyard were at one end, and being Sunday, with little space to park, we decided to come back on a weekday when we could search more easily for our kin. So a short look around town, and we headed back to our lodging for a quick lunch. Then time to explore in the other direction (west), and we drove the 11 miles to Keswick, a market town at the head of a small lake. It's pronounced "Kessick" - no W's allowed in the middle of a word! The town was bustling with people shopping and enjoying a jazz festival going on in full gear. Very touristy area, and every second shop seemed to be selling outdoorsy clothing and equipment. Half of the rest of the shops sell food and beer. It was a pleasant afternoon walking around, enjoying some of the jazz venues, and admiring the flower gardens along the lake. Nearby, on our route home, was a pre-historic Stone Circle, made even more mystical by the light mist.



Castlerigg Stone Circles, in the Mist.

Back to our timeshare at Whitbarrow Village for a supper of chicken and veggies, and then, even though we still found ourselves trying to drop off to sleep we managed to stay up and awake until after 10 pm by watching the local rock concert on the television.

Monday 16 May

Forcing ourselves to stay awake worked.....we managed to sleep through the night almost until a normal waking-up time. Up and about by 0700, and after breakfast, southbound on the highway to visit the County Records Office in Kendal, to sort out some of our ancestors' records. It took a full day of searching, and almost going blind reading the microfiche files of the Old Parish Records of births, baptisms, marriages, burials, etc.

By 1545 we were a bit tired, so left the Records office for a quick lunch at McDonald's (I know – I almost don't believe that either!). Then across the street to visit the local library, for a bit more searching on microfiche for obituaries and to try to get a handle on the economic conditions prevailing at the time our 2xgt grandparents decided to emigrate to Canada (for a reasonable explanation for the big move). We did find one of the obits we were looking for, but nothing else conclusive.

The drive back north was on the scenic route, rather than the motorway. The narrow, twisting road climbed over a bit of a pass, through beautiful hilly country. There were lots of sheep and lambs in the fields surrounding us, and occasionally they seemed able to find their way onto the road. Although I was only driving at about 45 mph, most of the other drivers were a bit faster, and many parts of the road seemed only wide enough for a car and a half, rather than 2....but other than the occasional groan or involuntary cry of terror, Linda handled it well.....even when some of the sheep found themselves leaping out at us, right in the roadway. We made it home to our humble abode by 1900, with time to finally type up a quick issue of the Blog to post from the bar this evening.

Here's a short video of the re-in-actors, preparing to storm the castle.

Home in One Swell Fwoop

Okay...I just gave up on blogging for the end of the trip, and left everybody sitting in Pt. McNeill. So here I am, almost a year from the start of our adventure, trying to end our story. I'm referencing the ship's log as a reminder, and hope to quickly run by the rest of our trip back to Comox. That's because tomorrow we (Linda and I) will leave home for a trip to Scotland, Northern England, and Northern Ireland - so then I guess it'll be time to change the name of the blog, and try it again, detailing this next trip.
But first, back to the sailing adventure! Tues. Aug 24 - We spent much of the day tidying up the boat in anticipation of the arrival of new crew. Linda arrived on the 1630 bus from Courtenay, and we celebrated with Frank and Marchien of Windbourn II aboard Jade. Wed. 25 Aug - Windbourn departed the dock at 0900......we took a bit longer, refueled the boat, and left at 1100, arriving at Telegraph Cove just down-Island a bit, arriving at 1430. They have a very interesting museum dedicated to whales, and great beer in the tavern. As we walked back to our boat at the dock, we watched a Coast Guard Fast Response Boat returning, performing CPR to an accident victim. They were followed closely by the whale-watch vessel Naiad Explorer, who presumably had been assisting in the incident. No information on what had actually ensued, though. Dinner of spinach salad and pizza, followed by nice hot/long showers.
Thursday, Aug. 26 - We departed at 1100, with a following tidal current, hoping to view some Orcas as we passed Robson Bight - but no such luck on this leg! So a few miles further on, we pulled into Port Harvey, which has a nice new marina (only 2 yrs old) at 1600. The restaurant has a good reputation, and we partook - very nice meals, with excellent dessert of wildberry cheesecake. Afterward, we watched a movie (Invictus) onboard while outside the skies opened up and it poured. We dropped a crab trap off the end of the dock for the night.
Fri. 27 Aug - The rain was easing up by mid-morning, so we decided to push on. Our crab trap yielded four nice keeper Dungeness Crabs. We left the dock at 1120, running back down Johnstone Strait, and then into Sunderland Channel on a broad reach, anchoring for the evening at the Douglas Bay anchorage in Forward Harbour. We plotted our journey for the next day to time our tides for the 2 rapids we had to run, and had a vigourous discussion on a variety of quasi-political topics following a wonderful dinner of crab, pasta and salad. We were able to get some cell-phone coverage, so called Jan & John in Refuge Cove to let them know we'd be there in a couple of days, and then called Oleo's Restaurant in Frederick Arm to see if they might still be open for dinner the following night (Yes - still open, and happy to have us!).
Sat. 28 Aug - Several other boats in the anchorage were leaving when we got up at 0800, even though our tide calculations hinted at a later time - however, in talking with them on the radio, it appeared we were probably right in waiting another hour or two, so stayed put for a great breakfast of crab omelet. When we left at 1000, we made good time through Whirlpool and Greenpoint rapids, and ended up pulling into Oleo's Gallery in Frederick Arm at about 1500. There we met Ruth, the widowed owner, and visited in her gazebo for happy hour, followed by a wonderful dinner of Louisiana Chicken and roast duck. We chatted until well after dark.
Sun. 29 Aug - We were up at 0800, but we couldn't leave until later to get the slack tide for Dent Rapids. Ruth had baked us some humongous cinnamon buns and a loaf of bread.....yummy! We actually got underway at 1300, transiting Dent and Gillard Rapids, and arriving Refuge Cove at 1900. Kelcy prepared some delicious fajitas enroute, for supper, and on arrival we had a nice visit with John and Janet on their floathome. Friends Terry and Denny, aboard "Night Moves", were also there - so it was a bit of a party/get-together.
Mon 30 Aug - Very nice, sunny weather, but forecast for gale-force southeast for next day. So instead of staying for a visit, we decided to leave, departing at 0920. With light winds it was a motorsail across Georgia Strait, and into Comox, arriving home at 1500.

That's about it for our sailing adventure to Alaska. A week later, we sailed down to Nanaimo to pull the boat out of the water, to check the rudder from the earlier log hit. Got the bottom painted at the same time, and back to Comox in a gale, arriving back on 26 Sept.

If you're interested in the next adventure, stay tuned.....tomorrow (10 May 2011) or the next day, I hope to start the next instalment of the blog, renamed for our adventures in trying to find our Roots in the U.K.