Boulder, Colorado to Southampton, UK
After Papaki was loaded onto the cargo ship "Stinnes Zephir", we flew to Boulder, Colorado to visit Monica's family for a few days.
We were able to use their car a couple of days andone day we drove into Chatauqua Park and had a nice hike up to "The Royal Arch", a natural formation with a fantastic view of Boulder
The next day we had a full day's drive to the Netherlands (in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado) over the Peak to Peak Highway and through parts of the Rocky Mountain Nat.park. Some part of the park was closed to traffic due to too much snow, but we drove until the road closed at "Rainbow Curve" at 3330 m (elevation 10,925 ft). We went from there up the road and after a while we wrote Papaki in the snow 😃 (something we sailors do 😎).
We also drove over "Loveland Pass" at over 3,540 m (elevation 11,990 ft), unfortunately fog over the pass, but clarification on the way over on the other side.
On the way up to the pass we did see a steam locomotive like in old western movies, so we turned off I70 into Silver Plume and saw the train coming. Awesome! 😃
It was very nice to visit Colorado. In addition to being together with Svein and Pauline, both Ian and Craig came to say hello. Craig and Caleb (Craig's youngest son) drove 9 hours each way to spend 2 days with us 😍. Daniel, Craig's middle son, also came over for the bbq last night.
After 6 days in Colorado we flew to London and on by train to Portsmouth. There we waited for Papaki's arrival in Southampton.
In the days before Papaki arrived in Southampton, we moved around a bit. We stayed in Carlton's apartment near the sea in Portsmouth. For a couple of days we rented a car and drove to Stonehenge, pretty great 😃. On the way there we stopped, among other things in Salisbury and visited the cathedral. Impressive, but think what it cost at the time it was built, the church took everything and the people were poor 😞. We also stopped at a zoo, "drive-through".
We stayed overnight in a small place called Stoford at The Swan Inn. The next day we drove to Bath, a great city, with many old buildings.
In Portmouth we walked a lot...👍😃. We strolled along the seafront, all the way into Old Portsmouth and to The Historic Dockyard. We visited the "dockyard" for two days as there was a lot to see. We saw e.g. "HMS Victory" which was Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson's flagship during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. It was during this attack that Nelson was shot and killed.
We also visited a submarine museum and were able to walk in and through the boat. To think that 65 men were on board for up to 3 weeks - claustrophobic 🥺.
We did also go to the Kings Theater and saw the musical "Mamma MIa" while we were there.
We hired a car for one more day and drove to Dover, the "White Cliffs of Dover". Cool 👍
The last «activity" in Portsmouth was the FA Cup final Man.City - Man.U. in an English pub 😃.
Man.City with Haaland (he's a Norwegian) in the team won. Most people in the pub were Man.U. fans, so we didn't cheer very loudly 😂, but it was fun.
On Sunday 4 June, Papaki (our boat) was unloaded, (with us on board the last meters down to the water) and we motored into the nearest marina. Here we spent the next few days setting up sails, cleaning and did some maintenance. We also found a boat shop and bought maps and some equipment.
On Thursday 8th of June we left Southampton and headed west.
We will sail west and north towards Scotland and the Caledonian Channel and on to Scandinavian waters.
We decided a few days earlier that we are skipping the Mediterranean for now.
There are several reasons for changing plans. The price level in Europe is now very high and with a low Norwegian currancy exchange rate it becomes very expensive, in addition the number of orca-attacks on boats off the coast of Spain/Portugal has increased a lot. In the last four years, up to 500 boats have been attacked, 20 of which were attacked in May this year alone. It didn't seem very tempting 😏.
Last but not least, we want to be closer to family, the grandchildren 😍, so the choice was not that difficult.
We look forward to canal "sailing" and Nordic waters 👍😃.
Monica og Kai Robert
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