November 26th, 2016

Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day - NOT
We were woken in the night to the sound of Mollie meowing and scratching at the bedroom door. Being wonderful, caring owners and it being the middle of the night we ignored her and went back to sleep.
Next morning Gary got up first to be greeted by a paddling pool in the galley area and about 1/2" of water on the floor. We had sprung a leak under the sink. We think Mollie had wanted to use her litter box and to do that she had to walk through the galley to get to there. Well, cats do not usually like getting their paws wet so we think she was warning us about the water. Next time we will listen to her and get up to see what she wants. Luckily for us, we were almost out of water prior to the leak. We had considered filling up yesterday and that would have been disastrous as the tank holds approx 200 galls of water.
Talking or should I say, writing of Mollie she has managed to find several safe places on the boat. She has never been on a boat before so is nervous when we hit big waves. The next photos show a few of her hiding places.

I take turns with the steering of the boat and like to have a cushion at my back otherwise my back aches by the end of the day. To alleviate the back ache I have a cushion I take from the Captain's seat to the First Mate's seat. However, more often than not I forget to take it and leave it for Gary who does not need it or use it. So, to stop the problem of leaving the cushion behind, I decided to wear it around my waist (I look like a turtle) so it goes with me to which ever seat I am sitting in. The trouble was I got the cushion on but could not get the cushion off without Gary's help due to my being rather chunky at the moment.
I forgot to mention that we are now on the Alligator River/Pungo Canal in North Carolina. The canal is a very long straight stretch of waterway that has a fairly narrow channel in the middle. Overtaking other vessels requires you to find the best spot and request permission to pass on a specific side. We came upon a tug pulling dredging equipment and it must have been over 500 feet long. He was going quite slowly (3.5 miles per hour) and had a driver in the middle of the rig in a small pusher tug as well the main tug.

We asked permission to pass and the Captain told us we could pass either side as he was staying to the middle because of his size. It took us several minutes to pass him without us causing him problems from our wake.
Monday, 28th November.
Oh what a beautiful morning, of what a beautiful day - YES finally.
Nothing went wrong during the night and we had a wonderful day on smooth waters with almost flat waves. The cat was happy sat next to Gary and sat there for most of the day. It was smooth sailing all the way to Dowry Marina on the Pungo River. We had  nice evening, calm and bright-

followed by a clear sunset. You can see from the reflections how calm the water was.

Oh what an awful night. We had VERY strong winds causing the boat to slam against the pier. Gary was not feeling well so I got up 3 times in the night to adjust the bumpers and to try and stop the boat damaging itself. The next morning the winds were just as strong and neighbouring boats were bobbing up and down in the strong waves like corks in a bath tub. Luckily, the Kingston Rover was not damaged and we were able to adjust the bumpers to stop the boat from rubbing against the wooden pier.

Wednesday, 23rd November.

Well, we are off again. This time we are planning on taking the boat south to warmer temperatures. Gary has worked hard on it for the last 3 weeks but unfortunately had to resort to taking it to a marina for problems we could not fix.
Wednesday morning was perfectly lovely so I sang this little tune to myself - "Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, oh what a beautiful morning, every thing's going my way" NOT!!
Before we had even left the pier the fan belt on the port engine began to smoke, smell and then burn up. So that meant we had to use just the starboard engine for the first part of our journey. The day went well after that with smooth waters until we stopped for the night. Then, we found out that the generator wouldn't run meaning we had no heat for the night. Well, the temperature was supposed to dip into the high 20s so we knew we were in for a cold night. I had a blanket and bedspread on the bed but added a very large towel to make sure we were warm enough. By 7pm I was ready for bed due to the cold. Gary came a little later after changing the fan belt.
I have taken a few photos so far but not as many as I have done in the past. The first photos I took were of the working boats of the Chesapeake Bay - the skipjack, the crab boat and the tug.

                                                                 The tug

                                                                     The crab boat

                                                                       The skipjack

For those of you not familiar with the skipjack, it is a boat unique to the Chesapeake Bay used for oyster dredging. It remains in service because Maryland has laws restricting power boats for oyster fishing. At their peak there were 2,000 skipjacks now there are only 46. We passed under the Bay Bridge and I got a nice photo of the two spans.

Thursday, 25th November.

Happy Thanksgiving to our family and our new extended family, the Dennins. We hope everyone had an enjoyable day.
Today was a very rough day on the Chesapeake. I took to my bed down below because I get sea sick and the cat, Mollie joined me. I moaned and she meowed!!!

                                                              Mollie in quiet seas.

Again, that night we had no heating so I was in bed by 5:30pm just so that I could stay warm. Gary came a little while later.
Friday, 25th November (one month to Christmas).
Today was much better on the Bay. The winds were calm and the waves flat making for a perfect day on board the Kingston Rover. Gary was up bright and early to get us going as we had a long drive to a marina we were familiar with in Virginia. We passed through Norfolk and saw some unusual ships in different states of repair.

The ship above looked as though it was missing some pieces and the Navy was not getting its bang for the buck.

                                    This one, too looked as though it had something missing.
The next two photos show a line of ships and the Navy's Hospital Ship, The Comfort.

I would have loved to have been an occupational therapist on the Comfort sailing the Seven Seas to help people of different nationalities.
Travelling through Norfolk we passed a ferry driven by a paddle wheel. I had never seen a paddle wheel ferry before so took a photo of it to share with you.

We also passed the next photo and wondered what was steering the barge.

As we passed it we saw a tug hidden from sight at the other side of the barge.

Well a blog of mine would not be complete without a sunset picture so here it is:

Tomorrow we are making our way towards Albermarle Sound. It may be a short day as the winds are expected to not be in our favour.

Now where did I leave off? I know, with the sign on the mens' toilets.

I did not come up with that as a sign for mens' restroom. The one I came up with would probably have been censured.
We have had such a lovely time in Canada and Washington I could spend many hours telling you about it so I have selected what I think are the highlights.
Dog walking in Canada takes on a whole different meaning-

We saw two sets of rainbows but could not find the pot of gold. I think the pot of gold was the wonderful scenery and people we have met along the way.

The Canadians appreciate the attraction of wild animals and unfortunately their death due to car accidents so they have built cross-overs and underpasses along the busiest of highways. Certain animals prefer the overpass whilst the others prefer to go underneath.

As you can see, the overpass even has trees and shrubs on it to make it more natural for the animals and to make them feel secure and less afraid. I did not get a photo of an underpass.
We spent most of the trip following a railway line. The line had to go through spiral tunnels to reduce the slope up or down the mountain. The train would enter the tunnel and then pass over itself on its way to a higher or lower level. The tunnels were 3/4 mile long and the trains would perform a 280 degree circle within the tunnel. This occurred near the Continental Divide.

What would blog be without pictures of animals? I have resisted so far. Let's start with mule deer-

This was a deer picture!! followed by a bear. This was a bear to get!!!

I was a little sheepish getting the next photo.

I was kidding around when I photographed the goat!!

Finally, a photo to crow about!!

I couldn't think of any puns for the above two birds, sorry.
I got the seal of approval for the next photo:

I'm fawning over the next photo. He was so cute but I could not get any closer without scaring him away. His antlers looked really velvety.

OK, enough of the bad puns. The next photo is of Gary and furry friends-

We never saw a real mountie but we did see the black bear.
The next photo gave me a giggle-

What do parents do after 7pm, eat other parents' children.
We have visited several nice gardens on our travels. Here are a few photos from some of them.
CASCADE GARDENS:

MANITO PARK GARDEN IN SPOKANE:

KUBOTA GARDEN, SEATTLE

Yesterday, we visited the Microsoft Visitor Centre in Redmond, Washington and were quite disappointed with what they had to exhibit. We were looking forward to reading about the history of Microsoft but were told very little about the course of the mega company and, Bill Gates was not there to greet us. Gary had his photo taken with the initial founders of Microsoft (he wishes).

I forgot to mention how when we were in Canada we went to what the travel brochures called "Paint Pots". They described it as water bubbling from the ground in an ochre colour due to the iron in the soil. Well, both Gary and I imagined it to be similar to "Paint Pots" we had seen in Yellowstone park so willingly went for a hike to see an amazing sight. Wrong, all it was was water coming from a submerged stream staining the ground a rust colour due to the iron. The hike was not worth it.

Yesterday evening we met with Gary's maternal cousin, Susan whom we had not seen for over 20 years. All of us did not look a day older!!! Tonight, we met with my best friend's sister, Pam and her family. It was so nice to catch up on all the news with both of the meetings.
Well, I am coming to an end of my blog. Both Canada and Washington were wonderful, showing us scenery, gardens, glaciers we had never dreamed of. The weather was most kind ranging from the low 70s to the middle 90s but without the humidity. We had very little rain and when we did we were in the car driving. One day we saw the rain ahead of us but luckily it went by us without dropping a single drop of rain on us.

So, I hope you have enjoyed our travels as much as we have. My huge thanks go out to dear Gary who has done all the driving because I do not see as much when I am driving and he knows I like to take photos as we drive. So, thank you Gary. I love you.