Leaving Boothbay, travel to Europe

Wednesday 18 July – Thursday 19 July: Travel days, leaving Boothbay Harbor for 3 weeks.
Another very peaceful night, and we wake up to a bright morning. Sunshine, it was about time!
We have few hours to finish the remaining small check list for securing the boat. The generator programming seems to work fine, it started and stopped as programmed this morning. Fingers crossed it does start every day till we get back! Fridge and freezer defrosted and shut off. Automatic bilge pump on. Seacocks closed. And at midday we are ready to leave Cloudy Bay, hoping she will behave herself while we are away. Only the small day fridge and the automatic bilge pump is left on.
We have a very long trip ahead of us, 30 hours, and several means of transport. The first of which is kindly provided by Bristol Marine, a launch boat to take us ashore. In the shipyard we meet Eric again, and few of his colleagues, with whom we have a short chat while waiting for the taxi.
Second means of transport, the taxi, shows up relatively on time. On the way, we pick up a third passenger. Feels like an Uber Pool ride 🙂 Not the chattiest of drivers, so the 30 minutes drive to Wiscasset we just lookout through the windows, admiring the view. Boothbay is certainly a lot prettier than we imagined, we’ll definitely take out the bikes when we return, to go and explore these picturesque surroundings.
We get dropped at the Concord Bus stop in Wiscasset (which will be our third mean of transport), where another man is waiting for the bus to Boston airport. We ask them where they fly to, one to Los Angeles, and one to Bucharest. Say what? Earlier in the shipyard, one of the guys commented that his previous wife is Romanian, and now the young man who shared the taxi with us is Romanian too. What a small world. Or maybe there is an invasion of Romanians in the area. We know lots have emigrated to Canada and US over the last 60 years, but so many people here in Maine had a story about a Romanian somebody (best friend, employees, girlfriend, etc.)
It is a 3 1/2 hours drive to Boston Logan, with a bus change in Portland (the fourth mean of transport). The luggage transfer between busses is done by the bus company, so no trouble for us. It is a comfortable bus, with TV screens, toilet, and they also provide bottles of water. All very civilized. The route goes through some pretty towns and scenery, over rivers and shipyards. So we didn’t get bored at all. Not yet.
Terminal E of Boston Logan Airport is a relatively small affair, quite busy but not annoying. We were bracing ourselves for the airport experience (we kind of dread the rush, crowds, noise of the airports) but here it somehow feels peaceful. Everybody behaves, speaks in low voice, no noisy kids. Most adults are docked into the charging stations (there must be hundreds of them here). Hm, we are not sure now if we dislike airports or not. We browse a Hudson News shop and buy a book, to keep Glen entertained for the rest of the journey. Oana prefers to read books on her iPad (to adjust font size). Glen is into his book straight away … it’s about a guy who has sailed round the world the last 13 years with his partner. But cannot now resettle in Florida. He has a new passion, to sail to the arctic and winter there, stuck in the ice! His partner who is looking forward to settling down is not amused, but in the end goes with him. Hmmm, maybe Glen had better not try that stunt with Oana!
The flight is delayed, and we board 40 minutes later, by which time Glen’s book character has arrived ( coincidentally ) in Maine on their way to the polar cap. We are treated to a brand new plane (fifth means of transport), Airbus 321, out of factory in Toulouse 3 weeks ago. It smells nice, and the leg room is not bad. Glad we didn’t pay a fortune for the extra leg room. And kind of miffed we paid to choose seats, as the plane is only 2/3 full, and we would’ve had seats together no problem. We treat ourselves to an IPA and a cider, then earplugs in and off to sleep. Well, sort of. Even if we each have a row of seats to ourselves, we do not have a good sleep, having to slightly roll every 30 mins due to joints ache. At 8.30 am we are happy to hear the announcement “please prepare for landing”.
Welcome to London! Customs and luggage were relatively fast on Stansted Airport. What wasn’t fast, was the Luggage Point, where we wanted to drop our suitcase. The lady working there told us she can only take our suitcase 40 mins later, once her colleague returns from her break. We have 6 hours layover, and want to go to the city to have lunch with Alex, Glen’s son. So almost one hour wasted trying to hand over our suitcase. Welcome to UK!
We buy return tickets for Stansted Express, our sixth means of transport, which also includes unlimited underground (our seventh means of transport) travel for the day. So we head off to Camden, where we have a nice lunch and coffee with Alex, then return to Stansted Airport for our second flight, and eighth means of transport on our journey.
Stansted is a complete zoo, especially compared with Boston Logan. Loud, overcrowded, crazy security check in, not enough seats for people waiting for their flights (but they certainly have plenty of shops to waste money in), no charging stations, dirty. The gate is displayed very late, and once at the gate boarding is delayed. Hm, Ryanair is great when one wants to travel cheaply across Europe, but now we are not really in the mood for yet another delay or queuing like sheep.
We take off one hour later than scheduled, during which time we roast inside the plane with no air-con, and see how luggage from previous flight is not even offloaded in time. Finally we take off. Extra leg room seats on this flight, it’s a must for us when on Ryanair. Plane is full, Romanians going home on vacation we imagine, as there are lots of families with young children. During the almost 4 hours long flight we keep ourselves entertained reading a book and Yachting World.
We land in Bucharest at midnight, after a 30 hours journey. Quickly get a taxi and 30 minutes later we are in our apartment. Home sweet home! We feel tired and hopefully we can fall asleep despite the 7 hours jet leg. From tomorrow, we are busy seeing family and friends.
The blog posts will have a break till we return at Cloudy Bay, on 7th Aug, in 3 weeks time.