Toronto - London

Our time in London has whizzed past and in a few days we will be back on the boat in Northern Cyprus. Hard to believe!

Our departure from Canadian shores didn't exactly go smoothly though, as having not had any snow for about 10 days prior to our departure it decided to snow the night before we flew out of St John's. The alarm was set for 2 am, although to be honest after going to bed around 11pm ish I found it hard to get to sleep and ended up tossing and turning for most of the 3 hours sleep time!

When we were once again up and about there was gentle snow falling and there was a 10 cm layer on the car. Luckily it wasn't heavy enough to be a problem for the short drive to the airport. Lucky since the snow ploughs weren't up yet. We made it to the airport without incident and even managed to check our very heavy 23 kilos in, no problem (maybe because the check in lady had only been on duty for half an hour, it was 3.30 am:)

Toronto Airport - waiting 10 hours!

We boarded the plane on time and the weather looked good except we were getting ice on the wings, so we had to move to the de-icing area where 2 chaps proceeded to spray the plane with an anti icing chemical for 45 mins!! This wouldn’t have been a problem except we only had an hour at Toronto to make our connection to London. I asked the stewardess (is that still the right terminology?) and she got busy checking things out for us. There was 1 other passenger on the same UK flight as us and a couple with a flight to Mexico also with the same tight connection. So when we started to come into land she moved all of us up to the front of the plane along with all our hand baggage and made an announcement to the other passengers to let us off the plane first. This was all very nice but with only 10 minutes to get across the terminal for our London flight I was sceptical to say the least. My scepticism was proven correct when as soon as we got into the airport building ground staff were waiting to tell us we had missed our flights and had been booked on the next flight; 10 hours later! This meant that instead of arriving in London ad 8.30 pm Monday night we wouldn't arrive until 6.30 am Tuesday morning! Well to say we weren't happy was an understatement, but what could we do?  Air Canada did give us each a $10 'lunch' voucher to cover our inconvenience. This in an airport where a bottle of water costs $3!

London Architecture

To say we have seen more of   Toronto airport than we ever wanted to see is an understatement, but we put the Air Canada voucher to good use to knock $20 off a very nice meal (not sure if it was breakfast, lunch or dinner:) at one of the many restaurants around the place.

Eventually we took off without incident (although by now we were exhausted)and arrived back in London where we were met by a kind friend who promised he didn't mind getting up at 5 am to meet us:)

It was strange to arrive in London which is just beginning to experience spring, the blossoms are out and the daffodils and crocus are in bloom and there is a green fuzz on all the deciduous trees with a promise of leaves to come. So different to the white blanket covering Newfoundland still.

We had a wonderful buffet lunch at The Grove -near Watford

We have had some 'fun' trying to get our boaty bits into the UK. We ordered a new membrane for our water maker. It's very light but it's a 40 inch tube! Another packing challenge! We also had to replace our forward looking depth sounder which isn't too big, but quite heavy. As both items were coming from the US, technically we should have paid VAT at 20% on them, but as they were going to be in the country for less than 10 days we thought we could get around that. The membrane was delivered by DHL and we had to pay 23 pounds when it arrived, however the depth sounder is a much more expensive item at $1000, and Fedex withheld it until we paid the VAT and duty. So Alan sent many happy hours on the phone to Customs who were extremely helpful and Fedex who were less so. One plan was to pay the VAT and claim it back at the airport. We were advised to allow an extra couple of hours for this. Then Fedex agreed to deliver it as a 'temporary import' with no VAT or duty payable. It was finally delivered yesterday! Meanwhile we had had to arrange for a cab to take us to the airport and allowing for the extra time we are being collected at 6.30 am. A bit early for an 11.40 departure, but we are now expert airport 'waiters' so it will be no problem to settle down with a cup of coffee for a few hours:)

We arrive in Cyprus around 8.15 pm and should be back at the marina around midnight! Home sweet home:)