Getting to the Beginning: Baltimore to London to Penzance

 

We were "only" going to be gone for 3 months this season, rather than almost 6 months last year, so we didn't plan to rent out our apartment. We still had to put everything away because friends were going to be staying there for a couple of weeks while their boat was being worked on. We also wanted to take everything off our boat so nothing could spoil or explode in the summer heat. We'd use it as an opportunity to do a deep clean and clutter reset when we got back in the autumn. Our own choice, but it was still a lot of scramble in the couple of weeks we had available after our stint with Adventurer before we left for El Galeon.

This chaotic wreck looks like a food-hoarder home! But it’s just our Eastport apartment, now that we’ve moved everything off the boat to put it to bed for the summer heat while we’re gone adventuring on El Galeon.

We had an overnight flight on lovely British Airways nonstop from Baltimore. The route was so far north that it was only dark for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of trusting Siri to populate our calendar with the flight information. The app didn't account for the change in time zones, so we scheduled a driver to meet us at the airport at 05:00 AM when we arrived. Fortunately our wonderful agent Sydney figured out that our arrival time was 05:00 Eastern time, which corresponded to a much more civilized 10:00 AM London time before we paid the night hours premium or lost the ride completely when the driver had to wait for us for 5 hours!

Our Uber driver thought we had very little luggage for 3 months; I thought it was a lot! We had our pirate garb, and El Galeon uniform t and polo shirts, and full sailing foul weather gear in addition to what we would carry if it was just regular travel. This trip was literally "planes, trains, and automobiles" to get to the ship, and lugging the luggage was awkward! The large wheeled duffles were just under the airlines weight limits of 23 kg, and only that because we carefully moved the heaviest items into our backpacks.

We had about 4 hours to wait between the time our plane landed at Heathrow, and our train to Penzance left from Reading. We wandered the streets of the town.

More of Reading -- Industrial Era facades.

And even more of Reading.

My first read on this was “doorstops” and I wondered if it was loaves of bread that didn’t bake properly and could only be used as bricks. Didn’t have time to find out what they really were, at the time. Later learned they are thick slices of bread used for making sandwiches.

Surprisingly tasty outdoor restaurant next to the train station where we found excellent veggie curry burgers after our 6 hour flight and before our 5 hour train ride. In general it would prove to be quite easy to find vegetarian options in English restaurants.

Once we struggled to stow the luggage, the train trip was quite pleasant. I got a short nap so missed some of the voyage, (not by choice; I love looking out the window normally but after the overnight flight the motion of the train was so relaxing that I just could not keep my eyes open) but woke up in time for this view of a typical field with hedgerows.

View from the train window of St Austell

Could be anywhere in the Cornwall countryside, in this case it was Truro

The walk from the train station to the hotel was short, but very steep, especially dragging those suitcases. The hydrangea-lined alley was a cheerful treat toward the end.

Dan coincidentally wore a shirt that matched the hotel room. Our travel agent Sydney's superpower is finding these wonderful boutique hotels everywhere we need to be. Looking forward to a good night's sleep before we got to the ship to begin work in the morning.

View from our hotel window. Live music from somewhere, and our favourite Spanish tall ship! It was so tempting to explore the town, but we were way too exhausted from travel.

The Adventure(r) Before the Adventure

 

En route to the festival, on an absolutely perfect June day.

I've always had a soft spot for this boat, s/v Adventurer, that belongs to our dock-neighbor Duncan. As the world was just starting to open up after Covid, he had agreed to show his boat at a festival in Annapolis and asked us if we'd like to assist. (Of course!) 

It was a fairly small festival, by the standards we'd come to expect after years of touring with El Galeon and Nao Santa Maria, but it was pretty darn fun, and local so very easy. Best of all, after a day of chatting with visitors and explaining various things about the boat, I was convinced that I still had my tourguide mojo and Covid hadn't caused it to atrophy. Which was useful because it gave us the confidence to say an enthusiastic "yes" when the Fundacion reached out by email in the autumn of 2023 to ask if we'd be willing to work on the Nao Trinidad for a few weeks, and that in turn led to our amazing opportunity on El Galeon in Europe for summer 2024. Talk about putting yourself in luck's way!

So when Duncan caught us on the dock one spring morning and asked if we'd again be interested in representing his boat again this year, this time for several days and including a pleasant sail to St Michaels and back, we were most definitely willing. 

It was three fun days as part of a classic-boat festival in a popular small town (amusingly, the very same one where we started with the Nao Trinidad as our first reentry into the tall ship world after Covid). Of course, since we were working we didn't see a lot of the festival, but we saw enough, and made some great memories. Here's a little captioned photo tour.

From the boat's promotional literature. I had to memorize all the boat specs and details; and felt a little awkward having to ask our friend how much the boat cost and how much he'd spent on the refit. Because we knew people are curious and they'd ask (they did!) but it certainly felt intrusive in a way that quoting those numbers for El Galeon did not. This boat was someone's personal boat, not owned by an institution.  

Crew lanyards always get you awesome VIP treatment at boat shows. (I'd forgotten just how much, but quickly grew to appreciate it.) The way this one was laid out, though, could have been a business card with an extremely cool job title!

Many of the boats were "deck tours only." But so much of Adventurer's detail was below, and well worth showing off.

The main salon was gorgeous. The tabletop has a custom wood decorative inlay, and is on a mechanized pedestal. It can be countertop height, dining height, fold out, or slide over and make out as a support to become part of a double bed, that we slept on after the festival closed every night.

The galley was bigger and nicer than the kitchen in my first apartment!

On the opposite side, pull-out fridge and freezer drawers. Scary how many visitors thought these were pizza ovens!

Many boats have teak-and-holly flooring with decorative light and dark stripes. On this boat, though, it's the real deal, in the traditional way. Each strip of wood is individually laid, and the light strips are a couple of millimeters thicker than the dark ones, making the surface nonskid.

We did get a few hours to wander the festival; here's one of the classics, immaculately restored in true 1950s style (not the fuzzy dice!) except it was converted from gasoline to lithium battery.

The on site museum had a nice little exhibit about the Underground Railroad that ran through Maryland.

Another vintage classic, this one using airplane construction techniques.

Crew passes get you VIP treatment and entre to many parts of the festivals, but it was these novel crew t-shirts that started lots of conversations for us!

On the first full afternoon, we were supposed to do 1-hour boat rides. Now, an hour is fine for a small powerboat to zip around the harbour with guests, but it's quite a different experience on a large sailboat. Basically we left the dock, raised the sails, sailed for 10 minutes, turned around, sailed another 10 minutes, lowered the sails, and returned to the dock; then did it again! Very thankful for electric winches on this schedule. Every one of the guests who wanted to had a (brief) chance at the helm. For those who didn't have smartphones with them, I took pictures and emailed to them. I had lots of pictures of strangers on my phone by the end of the event.

 

Not quite sure what to make of this quirky vessel that was also (apparently) offering boat rides that afternoon.

 

At dusk on the last day of the festival, we witnessed a surprise wedding proposal. A few young people were loitering on the lawn directly across from where we were docked as the crowds left for the night. I thought it odd but not particularly concerning until the woman screamed. Tired as we were, we invited them aboard, we had no champagne but we toasted their engagement with box wine in plastic cups, and the friend of the soon-to-be-groom who had photoed the proposal, took engagement pictures of them all over Adventurer. 

The trip back to Annapolis was less glorious than the trip out, gray and misty and motor rather than sail. It was still pleasant being out on a boat after a weekend like that. And it was going to be our last weekend before the real work began. We had to kick it into gear though; we had only two weeks left to pack for 3 months on El Galeon in Europe, get Cinderella safely put to bed for the summer and our apartment ready for someone else to live there while we were gone.

Iceland, Again

 We just couldn't get enough of Iceland, and the way our tickets were booked, we could take a 4-day layover in Reykjavik for no extra charge ... so we did! No rental car this time, we just spent time in town. Science nerds that we are, we spent an entire day at Perlan (earth-science museum), and also hit the museum for the northern lights, Icelandic history, maritime museum, and a lava show. That still left us plenty of time to just walk around town and enjoy food and drink, and even a bit of shopping -- where else could we count on getting super-warm wool clothing? Here's just a quick sampling of photos from the "land of fire and ice."

  

Duoro Valley, Portugal

 Porto was so amazing, it was difficult to imagine what could top that experience. We shouldn’t have doubted. Another of the wonderful black Mercedeses glided us inland (and uphill) to the Duoro Valley wine country. 135 km inland, over 1000- meter high mountains. About 1-1/2 hours drive but a whole ‘nother environment. The light is different, the air is sweet. They’ve been growing olives and wine grapes here since Roman times. According to our driver, Portuguese writer Miguel Torga described this area as a “geological poem.”

Duoro Valley overview, from the high point of our drive. It was cool and foggy when we left Porto, but just like in Colorado the weather became completely different on the other side of the mountains.

 

Breakfast

 I miss our Galeon peeps every day ... but not for breakfast! Sydney has been genius about finding us hotels that include breakfast, from local Icelandic Skyr (yogurt) fresh fruit and smoked salmon, to a full-on English breakfast in London, to this delish pastries and champagne in Portugal. Compare that with the El Galeon self-serve breakfast of cold cereal or instant oatmeal (the latter specially for us by request) or a panini press to make your own ham-and-cheese sandwiches, coffee or tea ... and be ready to work at 08:30. For all of that, we’re planning to work again in two months next summer when they need English speakers; and at the same time we’re appreciating our vacation travels!

 

Porto, Portugal -- A Statue, Two Museums, and a Bookstore

 We had far more opportunities to dig into culture in Porto than we had time, so we picked our top three. First up was this bookstore (you who know us well, know that we generally manage to visit a bookstore in every port, but this one, the “Livraria Lello,” was unusually famous. It was said to be where the inspiration for "Harry Potter" came from. Those words made for tourist magnets all over England when we were there, and apparently here also. The next day we got tickets to go inside. It truly was a pretty bookstore; and we learned they’re backing off the Harry Potter association, though the damage may well have already been done. Got away for less than 100 euros (unusual for us at a bookstore, I know, but we’re continuing our cruising tradition of going to local independent bookstores and buying books about the places we visit.) This trip netted us books about the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755; Portuguese navigators in the renaissance; a picture book about the gorgeous blue-and-white tiles we found all over Portugal; and Michelle Obama’s latest. And a couple of selfies…

Author friends: this is the famous bookstore where Rowling is said to have gotten the inspiration for the Harry Potter series. People line up and buy a ticket just to go inside! I wish you the same for any bookstore that carries your books. (And yes, we’re going too, but not right now, and the price of the ticket can be applied toward a book purchase.)

Porto, Portugal -- We Were Absolutely Smitten

 We were absolutely smitten by Porto. Not in an I-could-see-us-living-here way, but just in a deep appreciation for the unique vibe way. I'm sure part of it had to do with our location -- Sydney has a true gift for finding perfect-size hotels in great locations, this one right on a pedestrian mall and walkable to everything. The weather, think "Seattle" -- cool and moist, though we had sunny days as well. It was touristy, yes, but also, just ... right. I was fascinated by the tiles and the street scenes: 

Leiria, Portugal -- A Glimpse of Ordinary Life

 Our next city wasn't about tourism so much as it was seeing some longtime friends. Though there was some tourism anyway, Portugal is a lovely and varied country and its hard to avoid seeing beauty everywhere. Over the years we'd run into C and K aboard our respective boats from Nova Scotia to Florida and places in between. A few years ago they decided to retire from cruising and seek their next adventure -- living in Europe for a while, maybe forever. We'd had similar European dreams, though ours kept getting pushed back as we opted instead for one more year on Cinderella and the Spanish tall ships. At this time they had been living in Portugal for about a year and a half, and they invited us to spend a few days hanging out and seeing their new land-based lives.

Packed up our suitcases and headed to the train station. The train that arrived (10 minutes late) reminded me of trains I’d been on as a kid. Hey, the train was old enough that it could have been running first when I was a kid! As we struggled to lift the heavy suitcases up the narrow steps I found myself wishing for one of the professional drivers in the black Mercedes that had so smoothly whisked us away in other cities. But then we wouldn’t have met the kind taxi driver who helped us figure out which track the train would come on, or the French fellow passenger who would miss his own connection due to the late train but still took time to help translate for us, as well as lift the heaviest of our 3 bags. Minutes after we arrived at our hotel (and yes, finally there was a black Mercedes involved after all) C and K showed up. By happy coincidence it was C's birthday and we enjoyed a lovely birthday lunch along with meeting some of their new friends. We went back to their apartment afterwards; filled with light and a mix of new ikea furniture and treasured old things from before their boating days. Coincidentally their apartment was just a few blocks from our hotel — with a whole city to have chosen from this seemed an incredible stroke of luck. And finally a long convo with our waiter at dinner about … many things, but a lot about the situation of being in a small relatively poor country with too many pensioners to support from too few young workers, a situation we’re facing on both sides of the Atlantic. All in all, a full and auspicious first day in this city. 

The birthday lunch (C and K are in the middle). "We don't describe ourselves as expats," one said. "Expats implies we're in this transient state away from our real country. We're trying to remember we're immigrants, and Portugal is our new home." Note the backdrop of a wall of wine bottles; many of our pictures of restaurant meals in Portugal have the "wall of wine" in back.

Nazaré, Portugal

 Annnnd… on to Portugal. Just a quick trip from neighboring Spain. Much as we'd enjoyed it, we were anxious for some cooler weather. But our airport arrival experience was a misadventure worthy of our friend Denisa who writes about her travel snafus with wry humour: we somehow got directed into the line to get our passports stamped to exit the EU; fortunately the agent spoke excellent English and figured out that we were in the wrong lane before we ended up in the country illegally. After reclaiming what are now 3 suitcases (first trip in my life where I needed an extra bag to come home with. Of course, 5 months, temperature ranges from 0 degrees C in Iceland to 40 degrees C in Sevilla; foul weather sailing gear and pirate costume as well ordinary clothes and El Galeon polo shirts and jackets for work days, plus the antique nautical instruments from Whitby, and now my ceramic tile and a steadily-growing collection of fridge magnets, meant we weren’t exactly traveling light) we were met by a man in a suit holding a sign with our names on it and whisked away in a black Mercedes (for real! How cool, like a movie!) to our hotel. 

Our first stop was along the coast. Nazaré was a small fishing village, now summer vacation spot and location of legendary giant waves for surfing. No big waves the day we visited (I had been hoping for some leftover hurricane swell maybe?) but a really heavy salt spray mist in the air. Spoken Portuguese sounds a little like Russian to my ears and I definitely underestimated how uncomfortable I would feel not knowing any of the local language beyond a few politeness words. Between google translate, playing charades, pointing, and taking cues from other people we managed to get a couple of tuna, cheese, and tomato toasted sandwiches ("tosta atun com tomate" delicious for 4€ each) and a couple of beers.

A “living museum” along the waterfront promenade. This line of traditional fishing boats, they used to put lanterns in the back and go out at night with nets to fish (signs in front of each boat gave specific details; the last one in the row is the lifeboat)

  

Sevilla, Spain -- Tile

 So much of Spain (and we would later learn, Portugal) uses tile for a building material. Easy to see why -- strong, durable, insect- and water-resistant, varied and beautiful. So for a little different adventure Sydney scheduled us for a private session learning about, and hand-painting, a ceramic tile. Both Spain and Portugal have long ceramic traditions, evolving from Roman times when it was mosaics (images made of tiny bits). When we had our kitchen design/remodeling business, Jaye splurged on a high-end tile cutting tool partly because it was made in Spain and we assumed the Spanish had the most know-how to make a good tool. It was indeed good and over the years more than earned us back its higher cost in easy and accurate cutting. I meticulously hand-painted a tile which was then fired in the kiln (called “low-temperature” at only 1000 degrees Celsius). This piece took a little over two hours for a newbie. So imagine what it would take for these gorgeous tiles found on our walks around Sevilla! 

Before the kiln. The tile is basically terracotta; The glaze is finely powdered glass suspended in water. And fascinatingly the lines between the colours is a kind of oil—because oil and water don’t mix it will serve as a kind of barrier to keep the glazes from running into each other during firing.