Griff's Home - by Griff

I thought I would give you what is essentially my last post about our 2 year adventure (although my mind has not totally given the journey up). My last post was from East End Bay (part of Fat Hog Bay - I love that name) where I was waiting for Mystic Journey to either be sold or, as it turned out, to take her to Nanny Cay and put her on the hard.

Cheryl was a bit concerned about me getting the anchor up, sailing down to Nanny Cay and then putting MJ into a marina slip, all singlehanded. I must admit that with the way the wind had been shifting so it was coming from a different direction every day and add in the fact that it varied from 0 to 35/40 knots, the anchor raising had been on my mind too. Also, I had requested a slip at the marina situated so that I could go straight in from the entrance rather than maneuver between two rows of boats via a narrow channel but they said they had to give me what was available on the day I was coming in so I knew I would likely be into tight quarters.

To make a long story as short as I am able (being longwinded), the anchor came up with no problems and I was able to move to a mooring ball in East End Bay and hook up with no stress. I had done this (gone on the ball) because I wanted to weigh anchor early in case I had problems and I also wanted to secure the anchoring system while on a ball since it is much simpler than while sailing. I couldn't get into the marina until after 1:00 PM - thus the need to wait.

Leaving East End/Fat Hog Bay

Got to the marina with no problems, about a 6 nm trip and, as Murphy supports, the slip was in a narrow channel with boats on both sides. I asked the marina by radio which side I would be putting to the finger dock and of course the side they gave me was if I backed into the slip - which they didn't tell me. We have mentioned before that MJ does not back up well so when I went into the slip channel and found out, I had to back out, change all my fenders and lines to the other side and go back in.

At the Dock in Nanny Cay Marina

The next couple of days was busy taking down sails, cleaning the dinghy bottom and putting the dinghy on the deck (for on the hard), tying down lines and cleaning. I also took my baggage over to the hotel - lots easier to do when you only have to lift the 3 - 50 lb bags onto the dock, not carry then down a ladder after she is on land. Incidentally, the weight was also a big deal. Fifty pounds is the maximum without paying overweight and since I didn't have a place to take them to weigh, I had to borrow a scale and weigh all my bags on the boat to estimate the weight. Not fun.

Friday morning I contacted the haul-out crew and got a man to come aboard so that I would have someone to handle the lines once I backed (again the backing!!!) into the haulout slip. It all went well though - well, as well as can be expected when I was looking at MJ through pretty misty eyes. It took about 3 hours to get her settled and I spent the rest of the day and most of Saturday cleaning, covering windows and portholes from the inside and removing lines.

My Last View of Mystic Journey

Oops!!! This is actually my last view of Mystic Journey

Saturday evening was an early to bed since I had to get up at 4:00 AM to get the airport for 5:00. I had asked the Liat desk if I really had to be there that early since it was a Sunday morning and it was the only flight out and they insisted I had to. In actual fact I guess that only applied to passengers since none of the staff got there before 5:30. It gave me a chance to weigh all my luggage, however, and re-arrange a bit so that even though I was overweight, it was distributed through the bags and it worked because they didn't charge me any extra for that. I suppose the fact they charged me $120 US for having extra bags (Liat allows only one) may have influenced them.

I had to fly to St Maarten via Antigua/St Kitts - and my reservations were another story. Originally when I had checked availability and cost of Liat to St Maarten and Westjet from there to Calgary via Toronto, the cost had been $64 for the first flight and $304 for the second. As well, the flight from Tortola to St Maarten was direct and left at noon. Pretty good eh?? Well, I didn't book that day because I had to confirm my haulout dates. When I went back to book 2 days later - and keep in mind this was 6 weeks before my flights - the costs were $118 for the first (via Antigua/St Kitts leaving at 7:00 AM) and the second flight was $540. Poor me - poor, poor me!!!

Made it to Antigua, where I spent an hour or so, and then on to St Kitts (didn't get off) and finally to St Maarten where about 12 of us were informed that not all our luggage came with us because the plane was too full. We had to do paperwork and the lady assured me that if the luggage got there before my Westjet plane left, it would be loaded directly and if not they would forward it to any address I wanted. Funny, there are always jerks and in this case there were 2 - one Brit and one snotty young islander lady who were totally off the wall with this poor lady who had nothing to do with the luggage being late. I finally told the guy to go somewhere else and complain to someone who could do something about it. The rest of us didn't want to hear it. Well, I had gotten up early!!!! And he did!!

Nice flight from St Maarten to Toronto although the TVs were not working. The book I had lost in Tortola (forgot to mention that) had been replaced in St Maarten so I read and played DS.

Rob very kindly met me at the airport and we went to his place for the evening. Since Cheryl and I had left a bag at Robs the last time we went through I was back to 3 bags but we had made arrangements for Jason to pick up the extra one when he visits later this spring. I took one of the bags upstairs so I could take the one that had been at Rob's home, since I had no winter clothes to wear. Of course the bag I left at Rob's had stuff I needed so that didn't work out well but again Rob came through and later in the month shipped it via Greyhound. The other bag was sent by Liat but as Cheryl already mentioned, they only sent it as far as Calgary, where Leila and Ryan came to the rescue.

Well, I had intended this blog to be mostly about getting home but as I said - longwinded!! so I will start another blog about that shortly, since you are likely mostly asleep now. Sorry about that!!

Cheryl here - I arrived at the Calgary airport not knowing any of the above. I waited at the door I knew Griff would be coming through. It was amazing to watch him come down the escalator and see his face break into a grin when he spotted me. What a homecoming!!!!!

Griff is Home

Griff arrived home as promised on March 1st, minus two suitcases. One suitcase along with those of 11 other passengers was left in Antigua by Liat because the plane was too full for everyone's baggage. They promised to make sure it was sent on to Lethbridge since it did not arrive in St. Maarten before Griff's plane left from there for Toronto. The second suitcase was left at Rob's place in Toronto for Jason to bring back in April as planned. The only problem being that Griff's medications were in one of those suitcases. That meant before we could go to the acreage we had to drive into Lethbridge and pick up enough medication for a month since we were unsure when either suitcase would arrive. As it turned out we received a call from WestJet on March 2nd to say the suitcase from Liat was at the Calgary airport. Leila willingly picked it up and Ryan brought it down on March 6. Fortunately the medications were in that suitcase. Rob agreed to ship the other suitcase by Greyhound and we are awaiting its arrival. So that was the saga of the suitcases. This is the only time in all the travelling we have done that we have had suitcases arrive much later than we did.

Now since Griff's arrival we have been very busy working at re-establishing our home. I had done the painting and floor etc. as mentioned in the last blog, but I had not made any effort at moving in the furniture. I was essentially living in one room with a bed, lounge chair, TV and of course the computer (essential for communicating with Griff). The first couple of days Griff was home were spent finishing of the floor in the living/dining room. We laid the tile around the fireplace and then laid the last few rows of laminate flooring. Putting down the baseboards would have to wait until we could decide on what style we wanted to get.

We made plans to move furniture on Saturday, March 6th and fortunately the weather cooperated. I can't say it was really warm, but at least it wasn't snowing nor was the wind blowing. Griff went into Lethbridge at 0800 to pick up the moving van and by 0900 he was back and we were ready to get started. All that we needed was the help we had lined up. My brother Dan arrived first at about 0930 and then Jason and Scott arrived from Calgary. Finally about 1030 Ryan arrived having left later than the others so that he could spend some time with Eva that day since he was staying overnight at his parent's house. By noon we had all the furniture in the house in the rooms in which it belonged, but not assembled. We fed everyone pizza and then Dan, Ryan and Scott left. Jason stayed over until Sunday. He helped assemble some of the furniture and then went in to Lethbridge with us to provide us with much needed expertise in order for us choose a good TV and home theatre system.

The next week was spent putting things (pictures, small furniture pieces, clothes, linens etc.) back in their places and figuring out where we wanted to put our memories of the past two years. We went into Lethbridge a couple of times to pick up the TV and home theatre system we wanted and the baseboards for the living/dining room. Spent some time with Randy and Aleitha, my friend Laraine and my mom. Parcels from BVI Yacht Shots arrived with the woven throws we had ordered. They have a picture of Mystic Journey in full sail woven into them. We are very pleased with the way they turned out.

Later (March 22)

Well, this blog has been a long time formulating so we had better get it out. The reason it has taken this much time is that there has been an astounding amount of work to do to get even the basic things in place. We were (are) constantly coming across things - usually when we are looking for other things that we don't find - that we had forgotten we had or that were (are) supposed to fit into places we already put other things.

We finished the baseboards - we put in new ones for the living/dining room areas - I painted them and Griff did the installation (reluctantly - Griff here - shaped baseboards inevitably don't fit for me at the angles they are supposed to, in spite of using the absolutely beautiful mitre saw Deb so graciously provided us with). We have things back up on a lot of the walls, except my office and the basement, and Griff has been doing as much outdoors as the weather will allow. He is definitely missing the outdooors environment and double definitely missing the warmth of the Caribbean sun.

Oh, and we still have not put up anything that we spent the last 2 years gathering. We didn't really bring back a lot - except pictures - so that makes what we did bring back doubly important and we want to make sure it is put in a place that will allow us - and others - to enjoy it as much as possible. One last thing, we have an addition to our family. Griff will talk more about that in the next blog. Stay tuned.