To Seattle and beyond

It is said that lightening does not strike twice. I shall let you into a secret. It does!

Those who have been watching our blog over the past year will recall that our historic trip to the area we had read so much about – the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic – was abandoned after 24 hours afloat. We had hit the rocks – quite literally. Years of searching for such a trip, to follow in the wake of Sir John Franklin and his lost ships the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, had ended as soon as we had completed the mandatory safety procedures.

This was rather more realistic to the fate of Franklin’s ships than we had anticipated. Franklin set sail from England in 1845 and never returned. His ships were not found until 2014 and 2016, with the help of the company we were due to sail with. Our grounding resulted in the Canadian Coastguard sending a Hercules aeroplane on a 9 hour flight to locate us, and a sister ship coming to the rescue taking the crew 24 hours to reach us.

But we got back safe and sound apart from the obvious disappointment. Endless email exchanges over the months followed and we managed to reschedule the trip for this month. A big sigh of relief all round, for us, the organisers and agents who had their work cut out sorting this logistical nightmare – and they did a fine job too.

We geared up for our adventure again… until we received an email a month ago to be told that two of the company’s leased ships had been withdrawn by order of the Russian Government, and would not be sailing. More logistical nightmares for the companies and us.

Our flights were booked. If we cancelled we would lose them. Do we cut and run or see what we might do to salvage the situation? We chose the latter, flying to Seattle and returning two weeks later. But what to do in between? An impromptu trip to the Destinations Show earlier this year had resulted in us talking to US travel expert, Vacations to America. A call to this company helped secured a trip we probably would never have planned. A route was drawn together in a matter of hours to fit within our fixed flights.

The result… we will be driving 1,200 miles from Seattle to San Francisco covering some beautiful landscapes, national parks, coastlines and small towns, before flying back to Seattle for our scheduled flight home.

So lightening does strike twice in theory and we are hoping it will not be accompanied by a thunderbolt in the form of the threatened Heathrow strikes this week. We will keep you posted.