Many people have asked us why they should buy our book if they can read our blog for free. Just like Part 1, the book is very different from the blog. Here are a few of the differences between the two:

• Prologue: Picks up where the Prologue of Part 1 left off. It focuses primarily on the research we did as we planned for our journey and addresses the majority of the questions we were most frequently asked.
• Several new stories from the journey – And there are some really good ones!
• Many details have been added that were best left undisclosed while we were still on the journey (sometimes we didn’t want our parents worrying about us; sometimes we didn’t want to incriminate ourselves!)
• In Retrospect sections with great insights — so you can see the situation through the eyes of a newbie as we learn, while simultaneously seeing the same situation through the eyes of experience.
• Streamlined stories – some complained our posts were too long and detailed, the book is a condensed version they will enjoy more.
• Formatting is first person, through Christi’s eyes – Some complained they didn’t like the third person format, so they will enjoy the book more.
• Actual dates on each post. On the blog, the dates are not real time, which is a significant piece of information for anyone hoping to follow in our footsteps.
• All profits will go to our cruising fund. The more books we sell, the sooner you can start reading about our next journey! So, buy one and get all your friends to buy one, too!

People have also asked us why we broke the series up into four books instead of only three. We had very different experiences in each of the four world regions, so it was best for each region to have its own volume.

• In the South Pacific, Part 1, we spent most of our time in sparsely populated areas communing with nature. And we did a lot of rough sea time, learning about boating the hard way.
•  In Asia, Part 2, we were mostly in densely populated areas building cultural bridges. Our sea experiences were also different from the Pacific, with both our best and worst passages occurring in this region.

During the night watch we had three strange sightings. A target would pop up in the middle of the screen, near our position, stay on the screen about a half hour, then vanish again. When we looked outside, even with the spotlight, we couldn’t see any of them. One time we had to change course to avoid the target. Eric thinks they are all buoys, maybe even fishing nets attached to buoys.

Thanks to the calm seas, we were making great time and had to slow down. San Francisco Bay has strong currents and we needed to time our entry carefully to be at slack tide changing towards flood tide so when the tide did come in, it would be with us.

By 1130, we were at the first marker for San Francisco Bay. Almost about the same time we passed the buoy, the fog picked up, though we still had three mile visibility. We entered the channel into San Francisco Bay at 1230, traveling just south of the shipping lane. Traffic was light; only a couple other vessels were heading in and none heading out.

We were amazed by how large the breaking waves were on the north side of the bay. Today was a relatively calm day; they must be unbelievable on days where the waves are bigger. Inside the bay, the swell died down, but it got significantly choppier.

At 1300, the Golden Gatebridge became slightly visible in the fog. A handful of boats, mostly tourist boats, were in the bay west of the bridge. Here is a shot of the bridge as we neared it.

We passed under the Golden GateBridgeat 1345. Here is a shot going under and one looking back at it.

Apparently, the bridge must be a magic dividing line; on the east side there were boats galore. The current was strong, pushing us along at 8.5 knots—at one point we even briefly got up to 9!

Here are a couple shots: the first is downtown San Francisco and the second is the Bay Bridge:

As we neared the  Bay Bridge, the sun came out and the wind started to pick up. Fortunately, the marina was near the bridge, so we were able to get into our slip and tied up before the wind got too strong. The marina is near the baseball park, and as Christi jumped onto the docks, she could hear cheering from the stadium. A game was in session!

After checking in with the marina office, we ventured out in search of food. The game must have just let out, because enormous crowds of people were marching down the street. Feeling tired from the passage and not wanting to fight off the crowd, we picked a place next to the marina with only okay food.

The slip we are in is near the marina entrance and is both rocky and surgy. Eric spent considerable effort adjusting and re-adjusting the lines. The wind got up to 20 knots, and it was just as windy when we went to bed at 2000 (after a passage, we always go to bed early!). In San Diego, the wind normally died after sunset.

We are thrilled to finally be using Kosmos as a boat again, not as a floating condo. The wonderfully smooth conditions added to the elation about being on the go again. Since returning home from our circumnavigation, we’ve only done day hops. The Ventura leg was the first overnight passage we’ve done in over two years, and this Ventura to San Francisco leg is the first multi-day passage. We found it interesting that we so easily fell back into our “at sea routine.” Yes, we were rusty on a couple things at first, but it wasn’t long before it all came back.

We thought that after so long, we would have lost all our tolerance to the seas. We probably have lost most of it, but when we rounded Point Conception neither of us got sick, which showed that we have some residual tolerance left. When we first bought Kosmos, while doing a practice run, we both got sick in seas that were not nearly as rough.

Sticking to this week’s theme of stuff we’ve done to Kosmos…One of the interesting things was change out about 2/3 of the interior light bulbs to LED, as well as all the navigation lights. The LEDs use 80 – 90% less power than the existing halogen bulbs did; a huge power savings! They also are cool to the touch, so we never have to worry about burning ourselves by touching a hot light fixture (it was rare, but it has happened!). The LED bulbs fit in the existing fixtures, so no need to upgrade to special LED fixtures. The LED bulbs have come a long way in terms of brightness and color. The light isn’t quite the same color as our other bulbs, but they are as bright or brighter.

We tried to go LED five years ago. Back then, the technology was newer and the bulbs weren’t all that bright and kind of a funny color, so we changed out less than half in each room to keep the room from being too dim. The bulbs were defective. After only a few months, one by one, they started blinking like disco balls for a couple weeks, then went dead. We’re hoping this experience is better!

This year we also changed all the house batteries out (and were pleased with the company that did the work). If you baby your batteries, they can last more than five years, but we were hard on ours so they only lasted five. We mentioned in a post a couple years back that shortly after completing the circumnavigation, we installed a smaller group 31 starter battery. At the time, we didn’t think a large 4D battery was necessary, but after finding out it also connected to the stabilizers, we realized that the 4D was the probably a better choice. When we changed out the house bank, we moved the group 31 to the generator/wing engine and put in a new 4D as the starter battery.

This is part 3 of an 11 part series on our time in San Francisco. Read part 2 here and part 4 here.

In a crazy small world coincidence, Stan and Diane have neighbors who actively cruised for several years on their sailboat, Gone Native, with their teenage sons. We met up with Gone Native in Hualtuco, Mexico and again in Ixtapa and Ensenada and had fun hanging out with them.

We had a lovely afternoon with Stan, his son, Scott, and Dave from Gone Native. In the evening, Stan and Diane hosted a dinner party for us and the Gone Native family. It was a great evening!

On Friday morning, we checked the weather. It looked like the best window over the next few days was today, so we left Ventura at noon. In the protected waters south of Santa Barbara, the seas were calm. Wind stayed at around 15 knots on the nose for most of the afternoon, with long gentle swells and little wind chop.

Around 1800, not long after we’d passed Santa Barbara, the seas suddenly picked up, almost instantly changing to sharply shaped swells with a foot of wind chop all coming at rapid intervals. The wind picked up to 18 knots on the nose. For the next three hours, the wind and seas continued to steadily increase, and the waves got bigger, sharper and more confused. Since it was very dark (only a crescent moon blocked by cloud cover) out, we couldn’t tell you how big the waves were, but given how hard we were bashing, how much sea spray was coming over, and how much the anchor was dipping, they had to be at least 8 feet, probably more, at the peak. The ride was decidedly uncomfortable and it was difficult to walk around in the boat, but since we had been braced for much worse, we were actually thankful that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

At 2300, just as we started to round the corner of Point Conception (we stayed about four nm offshore), we expected it to get really bad. But it didn’t! In fact, the wind and seas slowly started to calm back down! By 0400, the wind was around 10 knots apparent and the seas were calm with only two to four foot gentle swells spaced relatively far apart and no wind chop.

The smooth, wonderful seas lasted all day on Saturday! We couldn’t believe our luck!

Of course, the winds were also light all day and the skies were gray and overcast. Speeds were good overall, varying from 5.5 – 7.0 at 1750 RPM. It was a tad bit cold, we wore jackets and ran the heater for a while. The most exciting thing that happened all day was we rolled up 32,000 miles on the odometer.

Almost as soon as we left Ventura, the bad smell was back. This time Eric sourced the smell to the sink in the forward stateroom. Aha! It was the gray water tank after all, not the blackwater tank or the toilet! Just in case it was the something caught in the sink lines, Eric put a bunch of Clean Potty down it, then covered it to block the odor from coming up.

To combat the underlying smell, we emptied the gray water tank out, then turned the automatic gray water pump off. We washed a load of white laundry in hot water with a generous amount of bleach, letting the gray water tank fill up with the hot bleach water from the machine. We waited five hours before emptying the tank back out, wanting the water to slosh around to remove any sludge built up on the walls and disinfect the walls.

When we were cruising, we never had issues with smells from the gray water tank. We almost exclusively used the little washer onboard, which we believed help keep the tank clean. But since returning from the circumnavigation, we almost always use the bigger, faster machines at the marina. We also never had smells issues from the blackwater tank while cruising. We suppose because stuff never sat in there long before it was emptied again. And, thanks to the big seas we were frequently in, stuff in the tank was stirred up and disbursed instead of building up.

Onto a different subject altogether… One of the things we love about sea time is it forces us to slow down our pace of life. We always intend to write blog posts, but we get so busy with life in general that we only seem to find time to write when we are at sea. This post is going to focus on a couple new toys we’ve recently gotten.

As we mentioned in the post entitled “June 2011 Update” , we got a new freezer. Our top loading GE freezer worked great, but it had a few flaws:

• We found that accessing food farther down in the freezer was difficult. We wanted the drawers so one drawer could be for ready to eat food, the other for ingredients, thus making it easier to find what we were looking for.
• The top loading aspect meant we couldn’t use some of the juiciest flat space aboard the boat. We wanted drawers so that the flat space could be utilized (see photo below).
• It ran on AC, and Eric perpetually worried that if the invertor failed, we would lose all our food. We could run the generator using the inverter bypass switch, but that really would not be sustainable over a long period of time in the tropics.

We chose a marine grade stainless steel Vitifrigo drawer freezer that could run on both AC and DC. We haven’t wired up the DC yet, but it is all set up so it can be wired in fairly easily before we do a major passage again. It actually has a slightly bigger capacity than the top loader, too!

Amazingly, the freezer fit almost perfectly into the existing freezer space. It was simply a matter of taking off the face plate, putting a board underneath the freezer so it could clear the carpet, and making a small groove in the piece on top. Here is a photo of the new freezer, along with all the stuff we have sitting on the newly acquired flat space above. Before, nothing could sit up there. Although… maybe the boat looked tidier when that space couldn’t be utilized!

The new freezer runs a lot more often than the old freezer did, but pulls less amps when it runs. Overall, it uses less electricity.

We were delighted by our new wonderful freezer until we came to the horrible realization that appears it isn’t cold enough to keep ice cream frozen; even at the coldest setting, the ice cream is mushy. Beyond the obvious ice cream problem, that means that frozen food won’t last very long in this freezer; food will have to be eaten within a couple months. Our old freezer kept things very cold; ice cream would have to sit on the counter and defrost for 15 minutes before we could scoop it out of the container. The very cold temperatures meant food lasted forever–we’ve eaten food that was frozen over a year that has tasted just as good as it did the day we froze it! Eric is going to consult the manual to see if there is some secret to making it colder.

Another new toy we are excited about is an electric motor for our dinghy! Our main dinghy was a Gig Harbor Navigator 10 foot fiberglass sailing dinghy with had a 2 hp Honda motor on it. We loved the setup because it was lightweight (the whole rig weighed 100 lbs!), we never had to worry about the dinghy deflating, and it was easy to row in an emergency. On our circumnavigation, the poor dinghy was practically beat to death, including being flipped twice (once in Bora Bora and once in Barbuda).

We recently had the dinghy hull reinforced, so it is tougher than ever now. However, the engine was dead and not worth saving. In choosing a replacement, Eric decided that the ideal engine for us is a Torqeedo Travel 503 self contained electric outboard motor. It has a detachable lithium ion battery, is 1.5 hp and weighs 30 lbs—the essentially same as our 2 hp Honda filled with gas!

This engine has several advantages:

• No gasoline, no oil.
• Nice and quiet, and does not make noise at idle (we tended to idle a lot talking to people).
• No pull starter (which Christi always had trouble with).
• Built in GPS and control panel showing information such as speed, power left, range left, etc.
• Can go about 5 nm on a full charge (maybe more if we go slow).
• Forward and reverse (Honda only had forward).
• Completely waterproof, including the magnetic key.
• It is modular such that it breaks down into three relatively light pieces (battery, control arm, propeller shaft).
• It is easy to bring the battery in to charge (0% to 100% is 8 hours, but we expect 80%-100 the usual charge cycle), and we have plenty of electricity on-board to charge battery.

We still have the 6 hp Nissan onboard (that is paired with our inflatable Achilles) for the rare occasion we need to go farther than 5 nm round trip. But, for all the times we used the dinghy around the world, we could probably count the number of times we had to go farther than 5 nm on one hand. You can get spare batteries and a solar charger, we may indeed be able to get gasoline off the boat entirely.

Since we just got the new outboard motor, we haven’t had a chance to play with it much. We plan to use it in San Franciscoand report back to you on how it performs.

This is part 2 of an 11 part series on our time in San Francisco. Read part 1 here and part 3 here.

As the sun started to get lower in the sky, the wind picked up to 18 – 20 knots and the wind waves became slightly bigger at 2 – 4 feet, but noticeably sharper and at more rapid intervals. The pointier waves caused Kosmos to hobbyhorse and sent some sea spray over the bow, but it still was not a bad ride considering it was head seas.

The rougher conditions only lasted a little over an hour, then we got into the shadow of Catalina Island, where the seas slowly but steadily improved. By midnight the ride was relatively pleasant again (for head seas) and speeds had picked up to 7 knots. There was no moon and it was pitch black out, so there was no visibility all night.

We expected conditions to worsen once we passed Catalina, but they didn’t. In fact, they continued to slowly and steadily improve the whole rest of the trip. By 1000, the wind chop was completely gone, leaving only the gentle swell, making for a lovely ride.

Shortly after leaving San Diego, we had a small SNAFU arise. The entire downstairs reeked like the blackwater tank. Christi guessed the duck valve in the forward toilet did not have a good seal and was letting the tank odor up. Our forward stateroom has two dorade vents, and while we were in Tahiti, Eric cleverly installed a fan in front of one of the vents to push fresh air into the not as well ventilated master stateroom. The reason the smell was so strong in the entire downstairs was because the smelly air was being blown around down there.

To ease the underlying problem, we emptied the tank as soon as we were far enough out to sea. We then partially filled the blackwater tank with fresh, hot water (from the shower) and emptied. We put in another round of fresh water and added a product called Kills Odors that claims to neutralize the blackwater smell. We are letting the water and chemical slosh around in the blackwater tank in the hopes that the smell of all the residual stuff in there is neutralized. To stop the smell altogether, we simply switched the toilet to go overboard, so if any air got in, it would be fresh air, not stinky tank air.

Eric was not as convinced as Christi that the duck valve was the problem. He was worried the smell may have been from something stuck in the lines, so we also flushed into the lines a cleaning product called Clean Potty that claims to dissolve solids and crossed our fingers it would dissolve anything hiding in there. He also said it was possible the smell was coming from the gray water tank and covered the forward shower drain to block any smell from coming up. After a couple hours, the smell went away.

It is ironic that we have a toilet problem again so soon after the last one. Only three weeks ago, the master stateroom toilet started periodically flush itself. Over the phone, a marine plumbing company deduced the control panel went bad. The control panel had to be special ordered, which took a week. Then the repair guy was swamped and couldn’t come out for another week. But the repair guy was worth the wait. Changing the panel out was easy and took no time at all. Eric probably could have done it himself, but he didn’t want to.

We say the repair guy was worth the wait because he was honest, straight forward and on time. Over the last year or so, we have had some headaches with different repair people, so we especially appreciated this gentleman. With Eric so busy working, he has had to rely on other people to work on the boat.

About three months ago we anchored out overnight and noticed the windlass wasn’t working quite right. Three weeks ago, we noticed it was dead. The repair guy we called made an appointment for a week later, then called last minute to reschedule. He stood us up altogether for the second appointment. To make it up to us for standing us up, he came out on a Sunday. We thought he was coming to do the work. Upon arrival, he said he was only doing an estimate. He asked Eric a lot of questions to gauge just how well Eric understood the systems onboard and how much money Eric made, which made us uncomfortable. The repair man diagnosed the problem as the motor and told Eric it would take eight hours to swap out. And he’d have to charge us a rush fee to squeeze us in before we left for San Francisco.

After he left, Eric pulled out the spare motor we had onboard and thought it looked easy enough to change, so he changed it himself in ½ hour. The windlass was still dead. He emailed the man to let him know it wasn’t the motor. The repair man got angry, and emailed back that he didn’t want to do the job because he couldn’t get away with padding the bill (we are paraphrasing. His actual words weren’t nearly as professional, including phrases like “cheap rich bastard”). Eric diagnosed the problem as the solenoid. Fortunately, the part was readily available and Eric installed it in an hour. And the windlass now works like a charm!

In March we took the boat into a local boatyard to rebuild the alternator (it was working fine but at the end of its expected life) and change the motor mounts out (the engine was vibrating a little because the mounts, which are essentially shock absorbers, were starting to go). When the alternator was put back on, Eric looked at it and said “That isn’t our alternator.” A fight ensued where they adamantly insisted it was indeed our alternator. The fact that it was a different color, had a different brand name, was made in a different country, and had a different amp rating than ours didn’t matter. They swore up and down it was ours. We got management involved, who said, “Well, no it isn’t yours. Yours wasn’t worth fixing so we put in a brand new one. What do you care?” and insisted all alternators were the same and we should be grateful to have a new one. After much fighting, we got them to agree to install a new Leece-Neville (the same brand as the original alternator).

Christi was onboard the entire time the boat was in the yard, working quietly on book 2 in the pilot house while the mechanics worked in the engine room, entering via the hatch in the salon. She kept track of the hours. Total hours for all people was 11.5 hours, including removing and re-installing the alternator. They billed for 24.5 hours of labor (at $80 an hour!). They insisted we had no idea how many labor hours were worked since we weren’t onboard. After much arguing, we compromised at 16, but we still feel like we were ripped off on labor.

Another major repair we had done was to the stabilizers. A few months after we returned from our circumnavigation, we wrote a post about changing our starter battery. The starting battery was dead and Eric was paralleling the house bank to start the engine. Our stabilizers coincidentally went dead about the same time. We were dreading the stabilizer repair. But much to our surprise, when we changed the starter battery, the stabilizers magically worked again. They had been running off the starter battery the whole time, not the house bank as we had assumed!

Anyway, since then, we noticed the stabilizers were making an unusual tapping noise. Eric thought it was the pump. We took Kosmos to Dana Point and had PAE work on it. They said it wasn’t the pump and changed out some other parts, but it didn’t stop the tapping. We had a local San Diego mechanic who was TRAC certified come out to work on it multiple times over a six month period. At first they argued with us that there was no unusual noise and it was our imagination, which did not make Eric happy. That stabilizer is next to our bed, inches from Eric’s head, and the noise kept him from sleeping when the stabilizers were on.

They also insisted it couldn’t possibly be the pump, but were never able to diagnose the problem. They changed out just about everything while playing the process of elimination game–except the pump, which they still maintained could not be the problem. We finally complained to ABT, who flew out their top guy from Seattle to diagnose the problem. It was the pump. Over the six months the local guys worked on the stabilizers, they rescheduled us at the last minute twice and stood us up altogether three times.

Even though we weren’t thrilled with the local certified ABT guys, we still love ABT overall. They didn’t charge a penny for the Seattle guru to come out (though we did pay an arm and a leg to the local guys for all the work). They gave us a free upgrade on our control panel display, which is easier to read than the old one. And, on the bright side, our stabilizers are now essentially brand new.

While we are complaining, we want to add one more. Last November we had a certified Lugger mechanic change the oils, filters and so forth. The transmission filter recommended by ZF costs $150, so instead of asking, he assumed we wanted a $27 filter that was the same size. We never noticed the difference.

A few weeks later, “Lugger” Bob Senter (the renowned expert on Luggers/Northern Lights) came to visit us. Bob immediately noticed the wrong filter and explained it wasn’t rated at a high enough pressure for our transmission. Bob told us it was possible that our transmission filter would blow and recommended getting the right one installed ASAP. We called the man who did the work and told him we wanted him to install the correct filter. He told us the filters were identical. When Christi insisted they weren’t, the man said “What dumb yahoo told you such nonsense?” When Christi said “Bob Senter,” the man simply said “Oh.”

We’ve done more work, too, but since this post has gotten long, we’ll stop here.

This is part 1 of an 11 part series on our time in San Francisco. Read part 2 here.

Our marina was feeling a bit ominous. The docks were deserted. The days are short and were very gray. While it was warm and dry inside Kosmos, on the walk to and from the boat, the moist, damp air seemed to permeate our clothes. The especially strong winds made a perpetual “woooo” sound through the sailboat masts that sounds like ghosts howling. It was the perfect setting for a horror flick.

So, we were quite pleased when we woke up early this morning to blue skies, bright sunshine and no wind. And the forecast said no more rain for the next few days. Yay! Weeks ago we had scheduled Komos to be hauled out today for new bottom paint, and we had been worried that the adverse weather would affect the bottom painting.

We pulled out of our slip shortly after dawn broke. The water was flat as a pancake and looked like a mirror beneath us as we headed over to the boat yard. Unfortunately, we were heading east, so the incredibly bright early morning sun was blinding us. But we were so happy to see the sun that we didn’t mind the glare.

Like the haul outs in both Australia and Turkey, we pulled Kosmos into a special finger slip and secured her. A huge machine called a travel lift rolled up to the edge of the dock. The travel lift has straps, and the straps were lowered into the water and secured underneath Kosmos.

The machine slowly brought Kosmos up out of the water. We watched with baited breath. After hearing multiple stories of boats being dropped from the travel lift during haul outs, we always are a tad nervous about the process.

When she was high enough off the ground, the travel lift backed up until Kosmos was completely over terra firma. We walked all the way around her, inspecting the bottom. Since the bottom paint was completely worn out, we had expected to see a full botanical garden in bloom under the waterline, and were pleased to see there wasn’t nearly as much growth as we had anticipated. We credit moderate growth to the cold winter water temperature. One of the yard workers thoroughly washed the bottom with a power washer.

When her bottom was cleaned, the travel lift wheeled Kosmos over to a parking spot, where the yard workers secured her on the hard using bricks and locking stands.

When she was fully secured, the crew un-strapped Kosmos from the travel lift and it drove away. Kosmos rested peacefully on the stands. Yay! We were relived the haul out was successful with no issues.

The painter immediately got to work sanding her bottom and smoothing out the surface. We watched for a little bit, but we couldn’t really linger. We needed to hit the road. Eric was going to Tempe, AZ (suburb of Phoenix) for a business trip, and Christi was tagging along.

It is a six hour drive from San Diego to Phoenix. The first hour and a half is through San Diego, which is hilly. Just a few weeks ago, the hills had been brown, with little vegetation. We were surprised to see that the hills were already becoming green with new plant life. It is amazing how much the rain affects the landscape. Once we got far enough east, the landscape changed to stark desert. Since the days are short, we didn’t get to enjoy the desert scenery much before the sun went down, but it was a lovely sunset. There are a handful of small towns along the way, but they are few and far between.

We knew we had arrived in Phoenix when we saw major city lights. From what we could tell in the dark, Phoenix is an urban sprawl—a seemingly endless expanse of low buildings. We did notice a handful of tall towers congregated together in one small area, and we assumed that was downtown. We arrived at our hotel in downtown Tempe about 15 minutes after passing downtown Phoenix. The entire six hour ride was uneventful, just like it had been an uneventful haul out. And, uneventful means good, so we can say today was a really good day.

And, a blog questions:

Q: Does Christi still clean the bottom of the boat? How often does it need to be done?

A: Christi has an aversion to cold water, so she stopped cleaning the bottom of the boat when we got to the colder waters in the Pacific Ocean. Now we hire someone to do it. How often it needs to be done depends on how good the paint is and how cold the water is (things grow more slowly in cold water). When we were in 85 degree water and the paint was worn out, the bottom really needed to be done weekly. When we were in 85 degree water and the bottom paint was good, it needed to be done about every three to four weeks. Right now the water is only 55 degrees, but because our bottom paint was so bad, it still needed to be done every month or so. Once the new paint is applied the bottom will only need to be cleaned about every six weeks (until the water warms up in the summer).

We forgot to mention that a few weeks ago, Eric and his dad went to see an IMAX movie called “Under the Sea”. Eric was astounded at the underwater scenery – many of the scenes looked exactly like some of the places we have been diving. When the credits rolled, he figured out why. The movie was shot in five places, 2 spots in Papua New Guinea, 2 spots in Australia, and one in Indonesia. We went diving in two of the same places — the Great Barrier Reef and around Komodo National Park, so that explains why the settings were so familiar. Seeing the credits was a moment where Eric counted his blessings. This company had chosen the most spectacular dive spots in the world and we were at two of them. Wow.

Anyway, since then, we have been thinking we should go to the local aquarium. It is called the Stephen Birch Aquarium and is tied to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography Research at the University of San Diego. Eric hasn’t been there for many years and Christi has never been. We wanted to see how it compares to some of the other impressive aquariums we have been to, such as the ones in Atlanta, Monaco and Crete. But really, more than anything, we wanted to re-live our much missed underwater lifestyle. The water in San Diego is way too cold and generally too murky for us to consider diving in.

So, today we went to the aquarium with Eric’s parents. We were there right when they opened. Here is the whale sculpture out front:

Surprisingly enough, the Birch aquarium was first built in 1903, back in the day when the study of the ocean was a relatively new field of science. However, unlike Monaco, which still uses their original building built in 1910, the Birch Aquarium has relocated to a modern facility built in 1992. The aquarium is divided into two halves. One half has quite a few tanks with ecosystems of sea life. The other half has a lot of informational displays and a few species of individual fish on display. The tank portion of the facility is smaller than all three aforementioned aquariums, but the informational section is bigger than in both Crete and Atlanta. There is also an outdoor area with touch pools.

We started with the tank section. There are over 60 tanks, but most are fairly small. Most of the displays feature ecosystems indigenous to the Pacific Coast of North America, with displays ranging from the cold waters of the Pacific Northwest to somewhat warmer waters of Southern Mexico. They also threw in a few tropical exhibits from the Caribbean. The largest tank of all features a kelp forest, which is indigenous to San Diego’s local ecosystem. The tank holds 70,000 gallons (266,000 liters) and is fed by natural seawater flowing in and out from the ocean right behind the building.

As we walked through the exhibits, Eric and Christi excitedly pointed out to Eric’s parents all the fish and coral we have seen on our assorted dives, such as butterfly fish, surgeon fish, trigger fish, lion fish, reef sharks, and many of the tropical corals. Here is a tropical exhibit:

We also spent a fair amount of time looking at the sea life in the colder water tanks, since we will likely never see them for ourselves in the water. There are some cool cold water creatures. Here is Eric’s dad watching jelly fish.

When we finished in the tank area, we went over to the informational displays. Most of the displays are oriented towards kids, and are fun. There was a series of displays on camouflaged sea creatures that was super cool. We saw familiar creatures, like flounder and frogfish, as well as new creatures, like a leafy sea dragon, which looks just like kelp. If we saw these little dragons while diving, we would have assumed they were small piece of stray kelp.

A big percentage of the displays focused on the effects of global climate change and too much carbon dioxide in the air. Exhibits include tanks featuring healthy coral reefs and bleached out coral reefs side by side, so the damage to the coral was evident, as was the capacity for fish to live within each of these reefs. One fun display was where you record yourself giving a weather report. Seeing these displays made Christi think of a retired scientist we had met in the marina in Panama. For most of his career, he was a researcher here at Scripps. Back in his early days as a scientist, they were noticing oddities in normal oceanic patterns and it took quite a while to figure out that these oddities were tied to global climate change. He hadn’t intended to do research on climate change, it just kind of happened upon him as he was studying the ocean. How cool to think of the small part he played in the exhibits here today.

We didn’t get to spend very long in the display area before the feeding show began. We headed back over to the large tank to watch the show. An emcee narrated, talking about kelp forests, San Diego’s ocean ecosystem, and the different creature in the tank. Kelp is a particularly large seaweed that lives in water 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) and below. It grows unbelievably fast – more than a foot (1/2 meter) a day, and can grow to be 240 feet (80 meters) tall. It is extremely nutrient rich and is used in dozens of commercial applications, ranging from food to cosmetics to fertilizers, and everything in between. Until 2 years ago, some of the local kelp forests were regularly mowed, with the kelp sold commercially, but apparently, that has stopped. Needless to say, kelp is an important food source and habitat for local marine life. The kelp forests sustain a huge variety of species.

Meanwhile, two divers got into the tank with several buckets of food. They would alternate passing out food to the animals and cleaning the inside of the glass, filters, etc.
When we had passed by the tank earlier in the day, we could see a nice variety of sea life in and amongst the kelp, including a bright orange garibaldi, a barracuda, a shark, and a giant sea bass. But when the food came out, wow! Suddenly, there was sea life galore swarming the divers, including a couple more shark species. Even species that like to hide, like Moray Eels, came out for food. It is kind of interesting to see how many different species can all live together harmoniously in such a relatively small space. Check out the sea bass that is almost as big as the diver!

When the show was over, we decided to skip the rest of the museum and get lunch instead. The aquarium had gotten crowded and we were all starting to get hungry. So, we never finished looking at the informational displays, nor did we make it to the touch pools outside. But we did enjoy what we saw, and found the aquarium interesting enough that we would be happy to go back again soon.

Sunday, September 13 – We had been procrastinating on putting in a new main engine starter battery largely because we were undecided about whether to replace it with the same size or a smaller one. On our last bay cruise, we noticed that the secondary alternator that charges the battery seemed to have inconsistent voltage drops. Hmmm… was it the battery or the alternator causing the issue? We realized we couldn’t put off replacing the battery anymore. It was time to make a decision.

Our starter battery is a size 4D of type Acid Glass Mat (AGM) by Lifeline. Nordhavn is now using a smaller size 31 battery on 43’s. There were only two real pros for going with the same size battery. One, the installation would be a perfect fit. Eric would have to fabricate some pieces to make the smaller battery fit securely. Two, it is comforting to have a larger battery; you never know when you might need it. The pros of a lighter weight battery were certainly appealing. The 4D battery weighs 135 pounds, and smaller size 31 Lifeline battery weighs 69 pounds, which is a more manageable weight to work with for transporting and installing. And, the size 31 one costs $600 less.

We decided to go with the size 31 battery. Last weekend, Eric went to the store and picked it up. Then he got to work. Our lazarette is jam packed with assorted stuff, so clearing everything out of the way was a project in and of itself. We had installed a shelf over the batteries, which serves two purposes. One, it helps protect the batteries and two, it provides extra storage room. Getting the shelf off required unscrewing a bunch of screws, and it was a pain. The batteries are on the floor of the lazarette behind the rudder post and steering gear. Each battery is recessed into the floor by about 2 inches. Also there is a bracket that goes over the each battery that further keeps them from moving around. The boat could actually roll over and the batteries would be in place. There is not much vertical space, so it is difficult to get enough leverage to lift the battery out. Eric was able to tip the battery and get a bar under the battery which allowed him to shift it out of its recessed space. Then he could slide it over to the laz hatch. And, despite Christi’s big hulking muscles, she wasn’t much help to get the battery out.

To finish the project Eric constructed pieces made to make the battery fit snuggly. Also the battery posts were in a different spot, but thankfully the wires were long enough. But he did have to change the position of the bracket mounting points to make the top part fit over the new battery.

Before he put the shelf back in and repacked the lazarette, he started the engine with the new battery to make sure it was working. As he turned on everything, he noticed the stabilizers were working. What? The stabilizers have been dead for weeks! How come they are suddenly magically working? Today we found out something new about our boat: the active fin stabilizers are wired to the starter battery and secondary alternator, not the house bank of batteries. We can’t even begin to tell you how thrilled we are to know the stabilizers are working fine and do not need to be repaired.

Once the lazarette was cleaned up and the battery project officially complete, Eric went through Kosmos’ normal weekly exercise routine. He runs the engine, wing engine, bow thrusters, water maker, and everything else that needs to be regularly exercised. After running the engine for a while, it was clear that our secondary alternator is not working. He also changed the carbon filter on the water makers’ fresh water flush system and noticed the filter seal has a small leak. He turned the value for it off. That will be a project for another day. But, being that we were still elated over the stabilizers, these two issues didn’t bother us in the least. Neither was a big deal when compared to the stabilizers.

And, a blog question:

Q: What website(s) do you copy your history posts from?
A: Christi writes them all herself. She is a history buff and would read several history sources about each country. She would write a compilation of the things she thinks are most interesting. One of the beauties of having the blog behind real time was that we could gather info while in each country and then she could compile it after the fact, tailoring the histories to flow with the rest of the information in the posts.

More stories on the way…

On that first outing, we went out to sea so we could dump the holding tanks. We also tried to wash all the tanks out, as well, particularly the gray water tank. We may be wrong, but we are assuming that since the boat hasn’t been in big waves for a while, more stuff than normal has settled in the bottom of the tanks and needed to be flushed out. Eric had commented that we really need to get a new starter battery (http://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/2009/06/02/settling-in-san-blas/).

Embarrassingly enough, the wind and currents were acting oddly, so Eric had a hard time with docking. It took three tries to get in properly. It seemed like the entire marina was out watching us. They are probably wondering how we made it around the world when we can’t even do basic docking.

The next time we took her out we went out for a leisurely day cruise in the bay, just wanting to give her general exercise. This time, Eric did an absolutely perfect parking job on the first try – and no one was around to see it!

After the cruise, Eric took a peek at the coolant and almost had a heart attack when he saw a small amount of oil in there, as if the transmission cooler was still leaking. He got in touch with Bob Senter from Lugger/Northern Lights. Bob is sure that the engine is fine. He explained that since we hadn’t flushed out all the coolant, there was probably still some residual oil lurking around in there. Bob told us the oil would eventually all rise, and to keep skimming the top of the fluid periodically until it was clear. What a relief.

Now for some Q & A:

Q: What nationality are most cruisers?
A: We have met cruisers of many different races from literally all over the world, but generally speaking, most cruisers are white and from first world western countries. The biggest percentage of cruisers are European, especially Brits, French and Swedes. You will also meet a lot of Canadians, Americans, Aussies, Kiwis and South Africans. The cruising world is definitely multi-cultural.

Q: In the blog post where you talk about being tested on sea skills (http://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/2006/05/20/being-tested-and-moving-stuff-in/) upon taking delivery of Kosmos, what kind of maneuvers did the captain test you on in the open sea?
A: The maneuvering skills were focused mostly on docking and avoiding hazards in the water. In the open ocean, he was concerned with proficiency with knowing how to use all the equipment on board, ie, did we know how to use the radar to spot dangers? Did we know how to use the chart plotter to map out a safe course? And so forth.

Q: Regarding that same post, did your insurance company choose the captain?
A: No, we could choose any certified captain. We picked someone who had been recommended to us.

Q: What would you have done differently on your journey?
A: There isn’t a lot we’d do different given our circumstances. We could give you a long list of things we would do differently if we had unlimited time and money, but usually, our choices were limited by those two factors, and we think, generally speaking, we made the best choices possible overall.

We figured out we need at least a week in between houseguests. As much as we enjoyed the company of every person who visited us, we learned that having back to back guests and overlapping guests was hard on us. We address why in our upcoming book.

We learned is to not go to sea when you have a cold, which is also addressed in the upcoming book. Unfortunately, though, going to sea with a cold can’t always be avoided.

Coming up: More work to Kosmos, more Q & A, a trip to Yosemite, the San Diego Maritime Museum, and the Nordhavn Southwest Rendezvous.

• Prologue: How we formed the dream and the early planning stages.
• The entire 21 day passage from San Diego to Nuka Hiva has been re-written. At that point, the blog was in real time and we didn’t want people to worry about us. But the truth was that it was tough!
• Many new stories from the journey – And there are some really good ones!
• In Retrospect sections with great insights — so you can see the situation through the eyes of a newbie as we learn, while simultaneously seeing the same situation through the eyes of experience.
• Streamlined stories – some complained our posts were too long and detailed, and the book is a condensed version they will enjoy more.
• Formatting is first person, through Christi’s eyes – Some complained they didn’t like the third person format, so they will enjoy the book more.
• Actual dates on each post. On the blog, the dates are not real time, which is a significant piece of information for anyone hoping to follow in our footsteps.
• All profits will go to our cruising fund. The more books we sell, the sooner you can start reading about our next journey! So, buy one and get all your friends to buy one, too!

Christi’s attitude about going back to a traditional job has softened considerably. She has realized that being home has been good for our marriage. In retrospect, we see now that in our old life we had little quality time together. In between work and activities, our little bit of alone time was spent taking care of life responsibilities like errands and chores. Now, Christi takes care of that stuff while Eric is at work, so our time together is quality time doing fun activities. We do things like going for leisurely walks in the park or kayak rides around the bay, and we are both usually relaxed and in good moods. She knows that if she goes back to a traditional job, Sundays would be spent cleaning house and paying bills, instead. And, in the little time we would spend alone doing fun stuff, we’d both be stressed out.

Christi has picked up a small part time job writing a weekly column for a website called Parentella . The website is designed to connect educators, parents and the community and her weekly articles focus on educational topics. She is enjoying it and hoping to pick up more freelance writing work in lieu of a traditional job. Meanwhile, she is still working on writing the book, and has been looking into publishing options, as well. She is realizing that the publishing process is quite frustrating. She has not “sped up” at all yet and still living the slow life of our boating days.

We do have a funny story to share. A yacht that looks exactly like a giant Kosmos pulled into our marina. Christi saw one of the crew in the laundry room and asked if the boat was a Nordhavn. The guy was offended and said “No, we aren’t a crappy Nordhavn. Those boats are worthless. Ours is a Dutch builder with a superior design to a Nordhavn”. He then went on a tirade about how great and wonderful his (owner’s) boat is and how terrible Nordhavns are. She sat quietly and listened until he was done. After he explained to her how Nordhavns have no range and can’t go anywhere, are poorly built and can’t withstand big seas, etc. she said. “Oh. Well, my husband and I own a Nordhavn. We just finished a world circumnavigation on it”. He clearly didn’t believe her. After a third degree questioning where he tried to figure out if she was lying or not, he gave her a long lecture about how stupid and irresponsible we were for transiting the Red Sea.

With Eric working so much, he hasn’t had much time or energy for the boat. But, we are proud to report that he finally fixed the transmission cooler o-ring problem. Since he worked on it piece-meal, it took a couple weekend, but he finished it today. Eric devised a way to drain the majority of the coolant without hauling the boat out. He loosened the clamps and started a slow leak which he captured with a plastic bag to make a tiny coolant river into holding containers. He actually had it going for several hours at a time over several days before it was as empty as he could physically get it. Once it was drained, he changed out the rings, which was a fairly simple task. He filled the coolant back up and we think we are good to go now!

Oh, and several weeks ago Eric did do another task, which was change out the timer in the master shower. The timer switch for the fan stopped counting minutes. Normally, you set it to automatically turn off after a certain number of minutes, and leaving it on continually is not an option. But, ours was no longer counting time, so after you turned it on, it stayed on until you manually turned it off. We believe some salt water had corroded the insides of it from water was coming in from the porthole located next to the switch.

We are happy to report that both Olympus and Shurflo replaced our defective products with no questions asked. So, now we have a new camera and a new spare water pump. We love good customer service!

Coming up: More work to Kosmos, Q & A, a trip to Yosemite, the San Diego Maritime Museum, and the Nordhavn Southwest Rendezvous.