Welcome to the Johney Blog, the "Kingston Rovers". Why, you ask, the "Kingston Rovers"? Well, I will tell you. Are you sitting comfortably and I will begin.

I lived in the city of Kingston-Upon-Hull for 29 years prior to moving to the US with my handsome husband of one year, Gary. Hull, as the city is known, is Rugby crazy and one of the teams is called the Rovers. Therefore, I combined Kingston with Rovers (because we love to travel - Rovers (get it)) to get Kingston Rovers.

Gary and I intend to rove around the inland waterway/great loop on our 36 foot boat, The Kingston Rover to see sights of the US we have never seen before. Gary is the Captain, I am his first mate (and had better be his only mate!!) and it is my job to steer, cook, make sure the boat is clear for berthing/leaving port, stowing bumpers and to look beautiful sitting at the front of the boat. Well, most of that is true, not all.

We plan on leaving our home in Pasadena, Maryland sometime in the next 4 days and head into the Chesapeake Bay sunrise, if I can get up early enough. This trip down to Florida, about 1200 land miles will be a test to see if Gary and I can tolerate such a small area together with nowhere to hide when not just the waves start to get rough. We have been on the boat together for 5 days when we brought her down from New Jersey. We only argued 5 or 6 times, mainly when trying to park her due to a very bossy captain and a first mate who needs very specific instructions. We got stuck on sandbanks 3 times but only had to wait once for the tide to lift us off our night perch. We had 3 thunderstorms, torrential rain and very hot weather. We blew a capacitor which meant we could not run the air conditioner so we sweated the journey out until we got to a marina where we had the generator looked at.  All, in all a not too eventful first journey. At least, it was not our last.

Stay tuned for the first true blog after leaving Pasadena this weekend.