Friday, June 13, 2014

Charleston, SC to HOME!

Oh my gosh, it seems to have been a while since I last blogged. Charleston was nice. The only place we visited was the Maritime Museum at Patriot's Point. This was for my dear Gary to make up for all the Botanical Gardens, Wildlife Sanctuaries etc. The Museum comprised of 3 Navy ships you could go on - an aircraft carrier, submarine and a battleship. Gary said he had always wanted to go on an aircraft carrier. Something else bigger than him, I guess (my words not his!!).  I did tour the aircraft carrier for 3.5 hours with him but opted out for visiting the battleship and the submarine.

                I liked the sign on the golf carts window "my other car is a B17"




                      You could hardly see the other end of the carrier.



A view of the Kingston Rover from the deck of the carrier. The blue blob is our bicycles.

                    I  kept looking for Tom Cruise but could not find him!!
This was the closest I could get to Fort Sumter as we left the Patriot's Point Marina.
We had a fairly good journey from Charleston to Pasadena. We did, however pass very close to several storms. I tried to capture the storms with my lens:

This photo was one of about 30 I took in an attempt to get the lightening. When I finally got one it was, unfortunately not quite in focus.

One of the storms produced such high waves and caused the boat to rock from side to side throwing off many of the supplies we had on the front bed.


Another storm produced a beautiful rainbow.

We also were "attacked" by green eyed monsters and mosquito like bugs.
 Gary was particularly bothered with the green eyed monster below. He was funny to watch as he cussed and swatted at different parts of his body as the little b-----s bit him. They did not seem to bother me quite so much. It is the "No Seeums" that get to me.

The photo underneath reminds me of an airplane waiting for takeoff on the runway.

I finally managed to get some rather decent photos of dolphins.


In the photo above you can see the water vapour after it has been expelled by the dolphin.

 This is a photo of a mother and her baby. Mum must have been a little camera shy!!

As we passed through Norfolk, we again saw many Navy vessels either waiting to be deployed or being repaired.


We also saw 2 beautiful sailing ships. One was of the Lynx from New Hampshire and the other was "Godspeed" from Jamestown.
                                                   "Godspeed"

Gary wanted a photo of the "old" sail boat with the Navy ships in the background.
                                                         "Lynx"
The tugs in the photo below reminded me of the Little Engine That Could or the ant that tried to move a rubber tree plant. It looked as though they were both trying to push the building.
As we left North Carolina we passed some lovely sights. Here are a few of my favourites.




I thought it was interesting how these stumps were beginning to sprout new leaves and branches.
As we crossed the Chesapeake Bay it was like a mill pond. You could see reflections of the clouds in the still water.
The photo below shows storm clouds brewing on the horizon.
 We spent our last night on the boat in Oxford on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Again, we had very still water creating a pretty reflection of the land, water and the clouds.

We passed a skipjack on the Bay. This is a boat used by fishermen for oyster dredging and is only used on the Chesapeake Bay.

Trudy, this photo is for you. Trudy and I think that dead trees make photographs and paintings more interesting.

Well, all good things must come to an end. We returned to our home one year and two days after we left. I would do it again as I enjoyed it so much. It was great meeting old friends, creating new friends, seeing relatives we have not seen for a while, the new sights and all the wonderful people who have helped us on our journey of a lifetime. I thank everyone who has followed the blog and for the nice comments I have received. I leave you with one final sunset picture and wish each and everyone of you the fulfilment of your dreams. Dreams can come true, I know that.



Kingston Rover Loop Map

Monday, June 2, 2014

Arrival in Charleston, SC

We are now in Charleston, SC after several days of high heat, humidity and thunderstorms. I am weird, I actually like thunderstorms. I like the build-up and then the passing of the storm. I like them even better when our boat is
   parked alongside a sail boat with a tall mast!!!

The above storm hit just as we were arriving in Charleston. It dumped 1.5" of rain in half an hour.
Before we left Florida I did some fishing as you saw on my previous blog (my licence is only good for Florida). This time I caught two fish, both of which were hammerhead sharks. The first one was bigger than the second but got away before Gary could take a photo (a likely fish story my Mum said). The one that got its photo taken weighed about a 1lb and because the fish is on the prohibited catch list I could not keep it. Anyway, before I could get my hands on it, it chewed through my fishing twine and escaped without as much as saying au revoir!!

We passed several shrimp boats. One with its nets down fishing and the other returning home with its catch. The second one had many birds on its mast and lines just waiting for the fishermen to unload their catch.



 We also passed a flying flock of white pelicans. They are not as prolific in this area as the brown pelican so it was real nice to see them.

Despite the thunderstorms, we had a good journey from St Augustine to Charleston. We broke the journey by staying a night in Beaufort (pronounced
Be You Fort) , SC. The Manager in charge of the Marina was most pleasant. She suggested places to visit and where to eat. We started by having a walking tour of Beaufort in temps in the low 90s. Luckily, the old ante bellum homes were situated on lovely streets with overhanging branches to give lots of shade. The homes were nice to see and many had wonderful gardens. Gary and I took frequent rests due to the heat. At one bench, Gary spotted a huge live oak tree and asked me to take his photo underneath it. I obliged as an obedient wife should!!!!


                The view of the gardens along the Beaufort waterfront.

               An ante bellum house with really nice landscaped gardens.
 The photo Gary requested me to take of him standing underneath a VERY large Live Oak. His comment was "I have found something bigger and wider than me" end of quote!! His words not mine.
Beaufort trees were covered in Spanish Moss and were quite large. The tree is this yard was so large that the driveway was built underneath one of the branches. The branch then came down on the grass to the left of the driveway.
i
This tree stretched across the road and had a warning about how much headroom there was for cars to pass underneath.
The Spanish Moss in this area had started to grow on the telephone lines and looked like dirty washing hanging on a line.
We left Beaufort after a very nice stay and proceeded on to Charleston. South Carolina has huge tides and we again entered the area where 8-9ft tides existed. Many people had to build piers over 500 feet long just so that their boats did not end up on dry land like the one in the photo did. 





                                                     Low tide
We had cloudy skies due to the thunderstorms and at one time could not tell where the sky ended and the water began.

The next photo is of a ship in dry dock being repaired. I was impressed with the way the shipped had been "wrapped" to prevent the dust particles, paint etc from escaping into the air.
Just when I have seen almost every type of boat and ship, we passed this lovely sailing boat. It must have been over 100 feet in length with a mast of over 100 feet. It must have had a great deal of waiting time to go under the many bridges we have encountered on our journey. I did not gets its name or its registry. I would love to have seen inside her.
Yesterday, I was lucky enough to see a Bald Eagle family in a tree off to the side of the waterway. There was Mum, Dad and a baby. The photo is not the best due to the distance but you can make out they are Bald Eagles (honest).
This little guy below hitched a ride with us for goodness knows how long. It looked like the crabs that could be found on the Mangroves and we haven't seen Mangroves for a while. He was very "crabby" when Gary helped him overboard.

On one of our charts it warned about a sunken vessel near the shore. Well, if the photo below is of the sunken vessel, it must of sunk, many, many, many years ago as only its mast was showing above the sand.
Once again, we encountered speed demons. I was driving when this boat went past and actually contacted him on the radio requesting a "slow pass". Well, as you can see a slow pass I did not get. Everything on the boat was tossed all over. Luckily, nothing broke. I get very angry with this type of inconsiderate boat driver and look at the name of his boat - "Peacemaker" huh!!!
The boat below I think was the equivalent of the "Ka" (that half a car"). It would certainly make docking the boat easier being as small as it was.



Kingston Rover Loop Map