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.