We're at Oceanside, about 40 miles north of San Diego. The rain has been pouring for 2 days, the northwest wind is blowing and we're still feeling lucky to have a few days to catch our breath, do some laundry, and draw some conclusions from the boats we've seen and people we've met.
AND catch up with these posts. This one should at least cover the territory until we left England.
Nick took this picture at the Aylesbury stone circles. Like Stone Henge but smaller and so much
easier to get the feel of the place. Few tourists and no restrictions to wandering among them. So much unsolved mystery.
Nick and Beverly put us up, maybe that should be put up with us, for about 10 days while we waited for a weather window to fly across to Amsterdam to look at boat number 2. During that time we rushed around catching up on as much sightseeing as we could. Fortunately Nick is retired and joined us, in fact drove us to places we would have struggled to see. Beverly joined us whenever she could. We all had a ball, but I think Nick may be feeling that having relatives is over rated.
In no particular order, we got to see Buckingham Palace, St James Park, St Pauls, Dickens' Olde Curiosity Shoppe, Guards on horseback, the Tower of London, Somerset House, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square and Nelson's Column, Westminster Abbey, Tower Bridge, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Sir Francis Drake's Golden Hind... his ship! Winchester Cathedral, Stone Henge, the Aylesbury stone circles, numerous country pubs, some over 500 years old, so Nick could keep his strength up, and of course we had the wonderful opportunity to spend time with all our English bits of family.
I'm exhausted just typing it.
What can I say about Bon Accord. As we approached her she seemed to swell in size! She is a very big boat, huge. Although she is 54ft on deck, she is bigger in volume than many 60ft yachts. With her bowsprit she'd be about 62ft.
We've found that most boats are a mixed bag of good and bad, and Bon Accord is no exception. Because winter is just ending the marina hadn't turned the water back on yet. They have to turn it off to stop the ice bursting the pipes. So all the outside teak, which hasn't seen a lick of varnish in years, was green with mildewy mould, as were all the lines (ropes) and running rigging (more ropes). But there was no mistaking her beautiful lines (design) and solid construction. The UV protection strips on the sails had passed their useful life some time ago and were torn and flapping. A pretty dismal picture on any boat.
We spent hours inside going through hatches, cupboards, drawers and lockers, engine compartment, tanks, battery banks, cabins, galley(kitchen) heads(toilets) showers etc. The conclusion we came to was that the boat was basically sound, in fact very sound, and somewhat industrial. The owner obviously places a lot of value on strength and reliability and doesn't give a damn about aesthetics.
On the positive side, her last voyage 2 years ago was when the owner sailed her from Turkey virtually non stop for thousands of miles through length of the Mediterranean Sea, out past Gibralta, north, then across the notorious Bay of Biscay and up to Holland. She was a capable cruiser then and shouldn't take much to get her to that state again. She has roller furling of all sails and a bow thruster to help handling her weight in tight marinas or on windy days.
We left feeling Bon Accord was a good boat, but with a lot of work to be done. We felt lucky that we were on our way to Seattle in the USA to see Flying Cloud. She's also a CT 54, the same as Bon Accord, but from pictures and the discription would require far less work to get her cruise ready. She also has the benefit of being on the Pacific coast, so halfway home already.