Ships Ahoy

     Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. I hope you're having a  good week so far.

      We've been out fishing and cruising in my husband's boat a few times this summer. So far this year we've passed some interesting boats. Well we always pass other boats, but for some reason this year a few have seemed more exciting to me for various reasons. For those of you who like ships and boats,  today's post is for you.

    This past Monday my husband and I went out fishing. As we went downriver towards the ocean this huge ship was coming up river in our direction.

  I don't know why some of the photos are so grey and some are not. I didn't change any camera settings while taking these photos. 😕

    I am a fan of the tug boats. I think if I was a boat instead of a person,  or better said, if I had to pick a boat that was most like me, it would be a tug boat.  

  This large ship  (below) was leaving the dock and going out to sea (I saw her out there later but couldn't get a photo), and as they untied it this little tug was holding the ship to the dock.

   Here's another big ship that was  tied up to a different dock. It was unloading salt at the locally famous Portsmouth salt pile.

    The cars on the road in the background are  going over  the river along the route 1A bridge.

   On the New Hampshire side of the river there are lots of big ships and some industry. On the Maine side of the river it is full of homes.  

   In this next photo you can see  the docks on the Maine side (the right) where there is a marina and the salt pile (on the left New Hampshire side) where the big ship is unloading.

   One of the smaller cruise boats that takes close to shore  tours around the area (and also explains what things are with their  history) is called the Heritage. We always say no boat trip is complete unless we see this boat. And every trip we see it at least once, but sometimes more than once.

     Some day we might even take a trip on it because I'd love to learn more of the local history.

   Speaking of history, the yellow house in the background is the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion. It originally was the home of the Royal Governor of the British colony of New Hampshire named John Wentworth. When the colonists were stirring up anti-British rule, he fled in 1775. That left New Hampshire without someone in charge, so the colony drafted their own constitutional government. At this point, the other 12 colonies were still under British rule, but New Hampshire was not. We were the first place in the US to have self rule.

  

   Here's another difference between the Maine and New Hampshire side of the river. In the above photo you can see a submarine at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in for repairs of some sort.

   For years there has been a battle between which state the shipyard was actually in. Even though both sides  fight to save it whenever there are talks in Washington of making military facility cuts, its location comes down to taxes. Maine has state income tax, and New Hampshire does not.  Maine wants the income from the taxes; workers who live in New Hampshire don't want to pay the taxes. A few years back the courts decided that it was actually on the Maine side of the state line. They supposedly used old maps to come to that answer.

   Finally for today, can you see the boat on the left side of this lousy photo? This is actually a naval patrol boat that goes up and down in front of the shipyard. If you get too close (which has happened to us a couple of times since the fishing is quite good in that area and sometimes the current pushes the boat a little too close) they ask you to leave. It's a kind of scary vessel because it has a big machine gun mounted on the front.

   But sometimes, if the dogs are with us, the people running the boat just want to say hello the dogs too. Seriously. We are hardly threatening looking, especially with the 2 dogs. 😉

   I have a lot more marine vessel photos to share, but this post is long enough. Have a great rest of your day.