|
(Leaving Lydia B ashore at Deltaville, Virginia, Ian Laval drove in the
Chevy camper up to Montreal and across the Canadian/US prairies to spend
Christmas 2002 with sailing friends on Vancouver Island, British
Columbia. He then drove down to the American Southwest and returned to
Lydia B in March 2003)
Brentwood
Bay, Victoria, BC. Dec 17, 2002.
Hello,
Friends.
I
think I've been watching too many spy films. It's hard, the way things
happen, not to feel I'm in the plot. Is it Key West all over again?
I'm
still in British Columbia, at friend Bruce's, thinking about continuing
this land journey southwards as soon as Christmas is
over. Right now the afternoon light's fading to grey and I'm
sitting in Bruce's kitchen overlooking Saanich Inlet
and Anglers' Anchorage, the home-from-home dock north of Victoria
where I first brought Lydia B three-and-a-half years ago, then spent the
happiest of times with many Canadian friends before sailing south in
September 2001. It's been quite a thing meeting them all again. The
place hasn't changed much, thank goodness. But strange, walking down the
dock with no Lydia B to step onto. I'm missing her. The Chevy van I
drove across America is parked outside. They're good, vans --
but they don't have personalities like boats do. Crewing on Bruce's
Sea Bear for the Sidney parade of lights a couple of weeks ago stirred
the need to take Lydia to sea again. I'll be back in Virginia in the
spring, say good-bye to the United States and set out across the
Atlantic for Maryport, my home port, in May. Imagine it -- sailing up
the Irish sea with a beam wind, a clean shirt and Natalie McMaster's
Nova Scotia fiddle turned up loud! And what after all this? Now, there's
the question. Why does it take so long to discover that the world really
is an oyster?
But
back to yesterday. My head's moving on from BC. I need a space to
disappear to and do some serious writing. This is the 26th edition of
Lydia B's log; I need to pull together the events of the last two
years. Maybe in the mountains of New Mexico, among the
Navajo Indians I studied as a student social-anthropologist at the
London School of Economics. Not exactly yesterday! Remembering how
things are between me and the United States Immigration Service since my
summary ejection at Key West in June (they warned me, as they filed my
finger-printed record into the bad-boys computer system, that henceforth
I'd have a hard time whenever I entered the United States. And so it's
turned out, with a grilling at Washington Dulles airport and
a 'random' search at Sault Sainte Marie on Lake Superior) I thought
I'd better think ahead to next March, when my US visa expires. You see,
I can't start out across the Atlantic until May, so I'll need
a visa extension. Better enquired about early in Victoria, the BC
capital, I thought. I just need to know the form.
So
I search the Victoria phone book for US Immigration numbers in Canada.
There's one on Wharf Street. I know just where Wharf street is, down by
Victoria harbour -- the most beautiful harbour I've ever seen. See
how maudlin I'm getting about Canada? I phone them -- and get an
answerphone. Same thing again. And again. Seems it's only a number
to leave messages on. Nobody wants to talk. Don't the Americans
want floods of visitors spending money, for heaven's sake?There's a
Vancouver number -- long distance from Vancouver Island -- that says
there's no charge for calling. No charge for calling? I call
the Vancouver number and hear a recorded message. I can indeed
talk to a United States Immigration officer -- for a dollar fifty
US (a pound sterling) a minute. Perhaps they're raising funds to
bomb Iraq?
I'm
thinking now. There are US immigration officers down at the
Coho ferry. That's the rolly old ferry that crosses Juan
de Fuca Strait twice daily between Victoria and Port Angeles. I know because I took it a couple of weeks
ago to stay with friends at Gig Harbour for Thanksgiving. Twenty-one of
us sat down to a turkey dinner. I thought as I emerged from dense fog
into sunshine on the drive back past the Olympic mountains what a lovely
place northern Washington state is.
Anyway,
I drive the Chevy down to the harbour, put four quarters in the parking
meter outside the ferry office, run up the steps and find a male clerk
picking his fingers behind the window. The place is deserted -- next
ferry's three hours away. The clerk's big, crew-cut,
middle-aged, bored, unshaven and dressed as though he's just done a
sweaty day digging the vegetable allotment. A compatriot's slouched
over the day's paper at a table. I'm not too hopeful. But I explain my
visa situation and say I'm having trouble talking to a real live US
Immigration service officer. Friend looks wanly up from his
newspaper; both nod knowingly that they're not surprised. I'm getting
the picture. It tallies with what I'm seeing and hearing more and more
as Americans -- the ones whose job it is, that is -- wind up their
border security fever in the light of Iraq and terrorism. I'm keeping
the word 'paranoia' in reserve.
Crew-cut
clerk, though, turns out to be helpful, in a nonchalant, slow sort
of way. He makes a phone call. "See the Visitor Information Office
in the corner of the harbour?" he says, elbow on his desk, pointing
across the passenger hall, out through a window and over the water. I
see it, puzzled. But it's a Canadian office. What’s that got to do
with US immigration? No matter. "There's an immigration officer in
there. Go up the stairs. She's waiting for you." And what's the
office called?" I ask. "How do I know it?" "Don't
ask. There's no name on the door, but it's the only one," says the
big guy with the crew cut. I don't think I'm supposed to ask for any
more details.The picture's filling out. Finding a US Immigration officer
to talk to is like finding hen's back teeth. They've gone to
ground. Maybe it's because, unlike US-based immigration officers, the
ones in Canada aren't allowed to wear their guns. I remember when I
sailed on the Coho two women US Immigration Service officers
wore something hinting at a smile instead. They were
chaparoned by armed Canadian police. Are they afraid of getting attacked
abroad? Now there's a cultural observation!
So
I walk round the harbour to the information office. I still don't
believe it. Inside I ask the (Canadian) girl behind a stack of visitor
information leaflets if she's heard of a US Immigration office here.
"Come this way," she says, and lifts the counter flap. I go
behind and follow her, round a corner and down some stairs, past doors
with no writing on them. The last one's locked, so I press the bell.
It's still unidentified. Through the glass I see a tall, wavy-haired,
middle-aged man in civvies -- no US Immigration Service black
uniforms with yellow "Inspector" flashes on the shoulder. The
door buzzes and I'm let in and am immediately confronted by tall
man's pallid, unsmiling face. Is is fear, or in-your-face? Each
time I see these faces -- and I've seen plenty on my travels through the
United States -- I'm unnerved. My guilt complex about Key West and
panther lady takes charge.
I
sign the book and go through the whole visa explanation again. The
man says to wait there and takes my passport into a back room. Five
minutes later he's back. Has he checked me on that
computer? There's a pause while he searches for the words.
"You know when you're pulled over for speeding in the United
States," he starts. "Sometimes the cops book you, sometimes
they give you a warning....."
Good
grief! They locked the door behind me!
"Well,"
the man goes on. "What I'm trying to say is, there's a right way
and a wrong way to deal with this. Some of us in this office would just
tear your current visa-waiver out of your passport and give you a new
one for six months. Simple as that. Some would do it the right way, so
you'd have to apply in the United States. Maybe Phoenix, Arizona."
I
think I'm getting the drift. I don't think he wants money. I might be
free to go soon.
"When
you leave Canada and come by here, ask for Russell or Fred. If you're
lucky and one of us is here, you'll be alright."
Tall
man seems to be reaching out through verbal handcuffs from
this point on -- though when he hears about my boat voyage he wishes me
the best of luck. I exit the no-name door, up the steps and back
into the legitimacy of the Canadian Visitor Information Centre. I think
I've just had the privilege of meeting a sentient United States official
struggling to make sense of White House heat on border
security. At the end I sensed a smile, even if I couldn't see it.
Have
a Happy Christmas and New Year,
Love & best wishes,
Ian,
Lydia B.
Christmas lights for the annual
parade on friend Bruce's Sea Bear
Thanksgiving dinner with
American sailing friends at Gig Harbour, Washington State.
Ian Laval returned from the US land tour to Deltaville in March/03
and spent the next two months preparing Lydia B for the Atlantic crossing
to the UK via the Azores.
Deltaville,
Virginia, Thursday May 15/03.
Hello,
Friends:
It's
nearly time. At long last Lydia B's almost ready to go back into the
water. There's a last-minute hitch with the alternator (what else is
sailing, if not a series of hitches?) which we hope to overcome
today. Launching's scheduled either tomorrow or Saturday; we need a
couple of days on the water to check the rigging, make sure all the new
through-hulls are water-tight, stow the bike, secure everything below,
decide we've got everything on board that we need to be on board, then
head out into the Atlantic for England.
It's
been a long wait. Dave Anderson, who's crewing with me, arrived from
Brentwood Bay, British Columbia, a week ago, guitar in hand. He's deep
into a Bob Marley song at present. We think Lydia B's in good shape
to handle 3,200 miles of ocean. But it's a tough place, with plenty
of opportunity before we reach the Irish Sea and Maryport in a
month or so for water, humidity and general stress to take their toll.
We have to be able to fix it ourselves.
Most
of the stores are on board. That's something like 200 tins of meat, veg,
baked beans, Szechuan and goodness knows what else sauce, pasta, rice,
dried potato, Mars bars, powdered milk, Dave's beer, my whisky and
ginger (five-o'clock still comes round each evening on the ocean);
forty-eight gallons of diesel fuel for the engine and saloon heater;
sixty-five gallons of fresh water in the two tanks under Lydia's settees
and ten in one-gallon bottles scattered in any remaining spare corner.
Plus an emergency hand-powered watermaker, permanently stowed in
the ditch bag under the saloon table, and a tarpaulin to catch any
serious showers of rain we happen across.
There
aren't many spare corners. The boat's carrying almost two tons of gear
and supplies (including things collected on the way through the
Pacific, Central America and the Caribbean. Not least of which is a
hundred-weight or so of cocobola timber bought at a small sawmill in
Panama. The axe has already fallen on some of it, but the rest will
reach Maryport, England, to be used for furniture-making. Then there was
the bucketful of fire agates and other rock samples collected from
Arizona on the winter Chevy trip. There's been a general
weeding-out of anything adding unacceptable weight.
Patrick
and crew on Plein Sud, a Swiss boat that's almost ready for the
Atlantic crossing, will be heading out from the same Deltaville yard
about the same time as Lydia B, making for Bermuda, the Azores and the
Mediterranean. Paul, a Danish Canadian on Sealise,
will be a couple of weeks behind us, heading back to Denmark. Mike
and Gill, Vancouver Canadians on Khamsin with whom I sailed from Key
West, Florida, are heading north up the US east coast before
completing a circumnavigation back to British Columbia. It's a time
for saying goodbyes -- and au revoirs. Long-distance sailors tend to
keep in touch.
If
things go to plan, we'll be making a non-stop crossing via a slightly
more northerly route -- between 38 and 40N, minding the ice that this
year has drifted south to 42 degrees, then skirting the Azores high
pressure system and turning further north for the Channel,
with first landfall at the Scillies off Britain's southwest
corner, if the weather co-operates. The Scillies rocks are the
graveyard of many yachts in bad weather.
Later today:
The
alternator's been tested and seems OK. So it's back to the drawing-board
and a systemmatic examination of the wiring, plus a phone call to James,
its part-author back in BC. It's a frustrating time for a
problem like this.
However
-- there's a gale brewing on the Chesapeake this weekend which
would have probably have delayed our departure anyway, so
perhaps nothing will have been lost in the end.
For
the rest, it's a saying of goodbyes to Deltaville, this sleepy little
Virginian country peninsula sticking out into Chesapeake Bay,
former boat-building settlement in the hey-day of wooden boats.
Sailing and marinas are still its only business. Nothing happens
here at any particular speed, as I've discovered trying to sell the
Chevy, redundant since the trip round the US. I'm leaving it at Fast
Eddie's, a vehicle sales business on Highway 33 near the little
town of Saluda. Only Fast Eddie's no longer Fast Eddie. There was a
problem with his lady partner and she took off with the name and
established her own vehicle sales business. She got the name, so
she's Fast Eddie now.
Now,
at this time of year, Deltaville's fields and trees are lush
green with spring growth. It's a beautiful place and it's sad
to be saying goodbye just when I'm getting to know people.
And
am I sad to be leaving North America after four years -- four years that
were intended to be no more than one? I am. It's been a process of
continuous discovery. There's a great deal to assimilate. I thought in
England I knew something about America, but I see now -- especially
after travelling round it in the Chevy during the last winter -- I knew
very little. It's been fascinating. Sometimes frustrating and puzzling,
but interesting and surprising, always stimulating.
More
from the Pond as we make our way across it..
Love
& best wishes,
Ian,
Lydia B.
PS:
we solved the electrics crisis. The fault lay with a corroded
fuse-holder in the alternator's field circuit. We're back on track and
Dave's recovered from the shock of suspecting that his installation of a
new shore-power charger was the cause of the alternator glitch.
Tranquillity Lane, Deltaville,
Virginia.
Lydia B ready for the Atlantic.
Swiss sailor Patrick and crew refitting Plein Sud for the
Atlantic crossing.
Lydia B goes back into the water.
Gaelic prayer for Lydia.
Introduction
0 - Inside Passage and northern British Columbia
1
- British Columbia to El Salvador 2
- Nicaragua, Costa Rica & Panama
3
- San Blas to Florida
4
- Intra-Coastal Waterway to Washington DC
6
- Virginia, Atlantic to Azores 7 - Azores, Ireland to England
8
- Chevy through the US - 1 9
- Chevy through the US - 2
|