The rest of the story....the one returning from Maine

I never finished the pictures of the trip  back to the Chesapeake from Maine, so here it is, better very late than never (I guess...)

After Smokey helped us with laundry, we decided to take a last visit to Block Island.  We managed to hit it over the Labor Day weekend...  Boats were tied up at the docks three deep, mooring balls were impossible, and anchoring was difficult.  But Luke did well and we managed to find an anchorage, as far away from town as possible! We did make it to town for a walk around the area and a quick stop at the one grocery store on the island.  Yes, groceries have to be brought in, but the prices were HIGH.  We picked up a few essentials and headed back, past this beautiful little pond.

I could NOT resist this....I am sure they meant well...

A scoot back across the to the coastal side of the Atlantic to Mystic Seaport.  Such a beautiful place!  We anchor about 2 miles out of town and take the dinghy in, through the bridge in town that has huge concrete blocks that balance the drawbridge.

A little further and you are in Old Mystic Seaport, past the old lighthouse.

Mystic Seaport has several renovated beautiful ships, such as the old whaling ship, the Charles Morgan..Here is a great link to her history  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_W._Morgan_(ship)

The old village is also reconstructed, with shops and workshops to visit.

From Mystic we headed up Long Island Sound, first stop Point Jefferson. It was still hot and Smokey soon figured out that the breeze on Latitudes side was the best option.

Along the way, we passed island owned by the inventor of the segway. the insulin pump,  the portable dialysis machine, an all terrain wheelchair, a water purifier for developing countries, and a compressed air device that would launch a human into the air in order to quickly lift teams or other emergency workers to the roofs of tall, inaccessible buildings.  Worth a mere $500M, he can afford his island, complete with a miniature Stonehenge (right side of the island)  A link to Dean Kamen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen

Yes, it's hazy hot.  The haze finally broke (but not the heat) as we arrived at Port Jefferson.  The blue water and green grasses were beautiful as we approached.

Look at the shore - a deer is grazing in the grasses.

Best of all, at Port Washington we caught up with Luke's friend Andy, his old friend from his 20's and Andy's girlfriend Kristi!  It was great for Luke to remember old times and for me to finally meet them.

Then onward to one of my favorite stretches, NYC!  Past the lighthouse

And here comes NYC, past the infamous Hell's Gate!

One of the new, eclectic buildings with the iconic Empire State Building in the background.

And Lady Liberty!  I never tire of seeing her.

We stay to the far side of the channel, allowing the large ships to pass us in the center of the channel.  HUGE cruise ships and cargo ships.

We finally left NYC  behind and found an anchorage behind Sandy Hook.  It was STILL hot.  Smoke, ever a smart cat, found the best way to take advantage of the fan.

We waited out a strong storm that fortunately ran around us. It seemed to be a precursor of storms to come.  We left Sandy Hook early and tried to make it down the Atlantic as far as Cape May.  Nope, couldn't do it - storms swarmed southward of us and we gave up and went into Atlantic City.

Not the best idea.  The weather turned progressively worse and hurricane Florence threatened us.  Fellow boaters NORTHWARD in Barnegat invited us to come back north and wait Florence out in their hurricane safe dock. We hated to go back north by another full day but gratefully did so.  Fog set in before we left Atlantic City and stayed.  We FINALLY made it in, through the rough waters of the inlet but the fog just got worse.  We pride ourselves in being able to use our GPS and equipment to navigate but about half way from the inlet to our friends home we were hopelessly fogged in.  No matter where we turned, the water was shallow and we could not find the channel out.  Our friend recommended his good friend Len, a Coast Guard Auxiliary boater.  Len and a buddy braved the fog, found us, and guided us the rest of the way! That is Len's boat in front of us and Smokey on the bow, enjoying the slow, cool ride.

After 7 fun days of good friendship, good food, shopping, groceries, and laundry, we left, again trying to make it to the Chesapeake.  The sky was clear!

Barnegat Light is the tallest lighthouse along this section of the Atlantic coast.

This time we made it past Cape May and up the Delaware. In the haze, we passed the Delaware coast of Cape May, a freighter with "Shale gas for Europe", and the Ship John Shoal lighthouse.

Finally, into the C&D Canal, approaching her many bridges.

About half way through the canal, we stopped for a few days at Chesapeake City. Old narrow streets hold small old buildings full of new shops.

And, so much fun, a much missed Bahamas-style cruisers party!

A quick stop in Georgetown took us to Wind Song, Luke's first sailboat and now Alex's sailboat.  He has refinished her beautifully and has awesome plans to sail her to Maine.  It was great to see her again.

A gray day to Annapolis.  We passed this beautiful 3 masted ship. 

The Annapolis waterfront was flooded from heavy rains.  The ducks along Ego Alley loved it.

Old Annapolis has narrow streets.

But the Governors Manson has plenty of room!

From Annapolis we battled choppy waters, cold weather, and wind to Reedville, about a day's sail to our original destination Deltaville.  As we anchored in the chop, we decided that another day was just one more day too much and Reedville would be just fine for her winter home and probably for next summer.  So, we scooted to a recommended marina the next day, made arrangements, and are home for the winter.  

Reedville has a nice Fisherman's Monument next to the menhaden processing plant. The blue ship is one of the menhaden ships.

The menhaden ships all have smaller boats aboard that they take out with them.  The smaller boats deploy the fishing nets.

And here is most of the plant

Best of all?  There is an eagle nest at the top of the Fisherman's Monument!

A couple of days to get Latitudes' ready and she was hauled and put on stands in the yard for the winter.

Now, 3 1/2 months later, we are still trying to leave in the RV to go south for the winter.  She sits, ready, in our driveway, blocking all views!  

3 campgrounds have been canceled due to the government shutdown, then rain, and now high winds.  These have all contributed to keeping us here longer than we thought.  Maybe tomorrow....At least that will be the next blog!

CHINA! A 10 day tour of China

Heather found an amazing groupon deal for a 10 day tour of China and we decided to go with her!  We left from Raleigh, flew to Boston, and then had the never-ending 13 hour flight to Beijing, the capital of China.  But we got there!

We arrived late, after dark, seriously jet-lagged, and without our luggage (for 3 days...) All we could do was collapse in our hotel rooms and sleep the night away.  Breakfast the next morning was an amazing surprise! "American" breakfast foods and traditional Chinese breakfast foods filled the dinning room. We tried everything we thought looked good.  Made a few mistakes (some sort of slick soft fish parts....) but overall our hotels had breakfasts that were plentiful and good.  This picture shows about 1/3 of the buffet that was available to us each morning at this hotel.

By 7:45 a.m., our tour group of 28 loaded onto our very nice, clean, and comfortable Chinese bus, waiting for us in front of our modern high-rise hotel.  Our tour guide was counting heads and herding us into the bus.

Traffic was as bad as we expected in a city of 22 million.

First stop was the infamous Tienanmen Square, the political center of Beijing.  One of the largest city squares in the world, it is 950 X 550 yards.There were lots of military guards and soldiers.  Camera monitors were everywhere in the entire city.

Adjacent to Tienanmen Square is the Forbidden City, the home of the last 24 emperors of China.  The emperors' families, his concubines (the last emperor had 3000 of them!), and staff lived in this "city" of 980 buildings from 1420 - 1912.  A portrait of Chairman Mao hangs over the entrance,  It is said that no matter how you look at the painting, his eyes will always be looking at you. 
The two girls in the foreground were with our group.  We saw very few Caucasians and actually were quite a curiosity for many of the locals.

This is the first of 3 courtyards in the Forbidden City, each as large.  A series of 9 gates allowed visitors further in the complex.

The last Queen Empress Dowager Cixi ruled China from here from 1861 to 1908, when she died at about 71.  She kept control by appointing child Emperors during her power reign. She is known as the Dragon Queen.  She also lived in the Summer Palace during the warm months.  This is one of the gates to her courtyard.

Her bedroom.

Finally our first Chinese lunch!  All meals are served at tables for 8 - 12, with a huge lazy-susan in the middle.  Countless bowls of wonderful fried foods, rice dishes, noodles, veggies, and such kept coming. Each table is given a bottle of  water (all Chinese tap water is not drinkable - everyone drinks bottled water), a liter of coke or sprite, and 2 or 3 liters of Chinese beer.  Think about the weakest, palest beer in the US - that is about what it is.  But we drank it!  If a table ran out of beer, someone at the table could buy another liter for the equivalent of $1.45.

After lunch we visited the site of the 2008 Olympics.  The tower with the Olympic symbol is tall and covered with cameras.  Each of the light posts has a video camera.

Here is the Birds Nest, site of many of the games.

Another day, another adventure - the Great Wall of China!  I think I was most excited to go there and actually see it.  It consists of a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials.  It was built along an east-to-west line across the northern borders of China, approximately 13,000 miles long.  The earliest part was built in the 7th century BC with most of the wall built by 220-260 BC!!!

We climbed the steps to one of the first fortifications.  I do mean climbed!  These steps are STEEP and the step heights range randomly from a couple of inches to about 2 feet.  There were some areas that I climbed on all 4's.  We took several breaks in the climb!

Beijing has some of the tallest buildings in the world.  This tall one is taller than the Freedom Tower in NYC.

A short 1 hour flight took us from Beijing to Shanghai, an equally large city. First stop was the Temple of Heaven.  The Emperor was the only person allowed to enter the temple.  He visited here once a year to pray for good harvests.  He went again to give thanks.  Twice a year.  That's it.

A rickshaw ride was a treat!  Our tour group rode through the oldest section of Shanghai to a family home where we had lunch.  China is in the process of tearing down all individual houses and putting up enormous high-rises, at least in Shanghai, capable of housing 5000 each. This oldest section seems to have some sort of immunity right now but they continue to live without toilet facilities.  A neighborhood toilet is the only thing they have. These are slot toilets and toilet tissue is never provided - bring your own.

Lunch!  Bowls and bowls and bowls of food were prepared in an attached kitchen about 1/3 this size.

Beijing had relatively clear weather because they had a few days of rain right before we arrived.  Shanghai did not.  The smog got progressively worse as the week wore on.

From Shanghai we went to Suzhou, called the Oriental Venice because of the many canals. We took a ride along one of the canals to the Grand Canal.  These old canals are narrow and through the very oldest parts of town.

At the town of Wuxi, we visited the Grand Buddha.  He is 265 feet tall, one of the largest Buddhas in China. His statue is part of a large public park with fountains, walking paths, food stands, and several other Buddhas.

Buddha was born in Wuxi, so there is the Baby Buddha also.  He is in the middle a large pool, standing in a large lotus flower that opens amid dancing fountains.

Also in Wuxi is the Lake Lihu where we took yet another boat ride.

Both Chiang Kai-shek and Chairman Mao have mansions here.  They are on the opposite side of the lake.  The large pinkish building is Chiang Kai-shek's.  He was in power from 1911 - 1975.  His widow moved from here to NYC after his death in 1975.

Next night, Hangzhou, a "small city" of 5 million.  We arrived in the evening, in time to take a cab to a local market area.  Our tour guide gave instructions to the cab driver and gave us a paper to give a cabbie for our ride home.  Virtually no one speaks English, even the "Americanized" hotel staff. 
This was a fun time, looking at the small markets and food places.

Small shop, no room for a dressing room? No problem, just install a dress machine!  I stood on the little shoe marks and the machine took my picture, made a stab at my size, and put my head on a Barbie doll. It seemed to compensate for my heavy coat and purse stuffed around my waist. :-) I am sure I look JUST like this...Then we pressed buttons and watched me in all sorts of clothes!  A lot of fun, but not quite how I'd buy clothes.  Barbie Bobbie!

It took a lot of searching, but we each finally found things that we considered safe for dinner.  Our friend Wendy went out with us - her partner was coming down with a bad respiratory infection. Luke was struggling with one; he wore a mask because of his cough.

Wendy and I ended up with huge bowls of warm soupy veggies, chicken, and noodles.  Delicious!  Luke had a platter of some sort of chicken and lots of veggies plus a complimentary child's fruit drink.  Wendy and I each had a beer, which we paid for.  Our grand total?  Less than $6...

Our first tour in Hangzhou was to the West Lake, a beautiful park with boat rides.  Yes, another boat ride before some exploring,  This particular bridge is the Bridge of Youth - if you walk across it, you will become younger.

We tried!

The No. 1 Tea Plantation in West Lake was next.  This is the oldest tea plantation in China.  This may be fog rather than smog due to the altitude.

Tea bushes and white haired tourists. It was finally warm enough to go without our coats.

We did buy some tea, the Emperor's Tea, which is the first picking of the season of the Longjing tea, also called the Dragon Well tea.  The name comes from the belief that a dragon lives in the well that waters this particular ridge of the mountain.  This kind lady filled out canister by hand.

We did have several mandatory opportunities to "buy local". Jade, pearls, silk, embroidery, tea and Chinese herbals were all presented.  I have to say, a lot of our group bought a lot of stuff.  We got the tea and I bought a couple of small jade items.  Not the $12,000 necklace....

We were impressed with the embroidery, though.  These "pictures" are all small stitches of thread.  Here are an overall picture and an enlargement.

One of our other favorite side tours was the Shanghai by night boat ride.  The buildings were all lit up and many showing moving Christmas decorations.

Unfortunately, this video doesn't work, but you can see the lights on the buildings.

Here is the waterfront in the day. The tall building on the right is about 130 stories, about 30 more than our Freedom Tower in NYC. Virtually all the "modern" buildings in China were built after Chairman Mao's "Cultural Revolution" which ended in 1976 with Mao's death.

Our last day we went to Chinatown, (yes, they call it that) home of all of the trinkets, souvenirs, and peddlers than you can imagine!  It was fun. If you even exude a whiff of interest, the vendors latch on, and bid themselves way down from their opening price! We picked up a few souvenirs and I had a cuppa Starbucks.

We had a late evening flight which helped us sleep a bit on the now 14 hour flight back to Boston.  We both really enjoyed the trip and would suggest that anyone who is interested to go ahead and do it - via a tour group, though!