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.