Kosmos Travel Log

Are you ready for some adventure? We are looking for one person to join us as crew on our Atlantic crossing passage from the Canary Islands to Barbados. Pending weather, we plan to depart the Canary Island’s the last week of November 2008. The 2,670 nautical mile passage will take approximately 18 days. One of the most important qualifications is experience in rough seas. We have to know you can handle it if the seas get rough and stay rough for the whole 18 days. Long periods in rough weather can be difficult on you physically and emotionally.

We do four hour watches, so you will be on watch for four hours, have eight hours off, and then back on watch. If you are interested, contact us and we will send you more information about what you can expect and your crew member responsibilities. We will also send you an application to fill out and return.

On page 21 of the July 2008 Sea Magazine you will find a Nordhavn advertisement with a picture of a Nordhavn 43. It is Kosmos! The ad is about us. It even links to the blog, so hello to any new readers out there. They interviewed us for the ad when we were in Thailand. That picture of Kosmos was taken at Ko Muk. The ad mentions we are “working our way from Australia through Southeast Asia”. Well, print media can be a bit behind the times. That was many thousands of miles ago! See the new map on top of the Travel Summary page for an overview of our route so far. Also, we added a few more stories to the Highlights page, and some pictures.

Time for some blog housekeeping!

1. We renamed and reorganized some of the static blog pages.
2. Sadly we had a hack to the site that was redirecting some people to anyresults.net. FYI this information seemed to fix the trouble for now.
3. We have added a Highlights page and added some links to it. Do you have any suggestions for more highlight stories from the Kosmos Travel Log to put there? Add your suggestions to this post.

Hello blog readers. We made a comment on Welcome to Singapore.

And a few reminders: It may appear we have a constant Internet connection, but we do not. We write a batch of blog stories. When possible we go ashore and seek out a fast Internet connection. We load all the stories. We then have the stories time release each weekday, thus the blog posts are not in real time. We rarely can post comments due to lack of Internet connection. Also see About the Blog.

All is well, there are more interesting stories coming! Keep reading.

Wishing all of you and Happy, Healthy, Safe and Prosperous 2008!

We have been doing some reflecting on 2007. It has been the most amazing year of both our lives. The first four months we jumped hurdle after hurdle in trying to get ready to go. It seemed several times that obstacles might stop us, but then at the last minute we were able to overcome these obstacles, leaving a month behind schedule. We want to thank everyone who helped us overcome the various hurdles. We are so blessed to have had so many people help us along the way and we are thankful for your friendship, help, and support. We couldn’t have done it without all the help!

Since leaving we have been to 18 islands in the South Pacific, four places in Australia and one in Indonesia. We’ve been SCUBA diving in all kinds of amazing places, including beautiful reefs, caves, and shipwrecks. Of course, we have seen incredible amounts of sea life on our dives. We went swimming with dolphins and whales and sharks in the ocean. We have been to the rim of an active volcano and walked up a waterfall. We have seen many traditional Polynesian and Melanesian villages. We’ve done a lot of snorkeling, gone on many gorgeous hikes, and taken several island tours, including one on a go cart, one on horseback, and one in a helicopter. We have been to several big celebrations for a country’s local holiday, and twice gotten within a few feet of the country’s president at these events. We anchored on a sunken sailboat by mistake and had to handle getting unstuck very carefully or we would have sunk, too. We got our anchor badly stuck on some coral another time. In Australia we saw all kinds of crazy land animals and ate crocodile and kangaroo. We have been in very rough seas, and once we almost got hit by lightening. Those are all the biggies, but there is much more, too. Here is a list of some of the highlights since leaving home.

• Average speed: 5.94 knots
• Best Polynesian Food: Jenna’s Niuan Buffet, Niue
• Best Sea Animal Encounter: Tie between swimming with the whales in Vava’u, Tonga and swimming with the melon headed dolphins in Nuka Hiva, French Polynesia
• Best Polynesian Dancing: Society Islands, French Polynesia
• Best Tattoo artistry: The Marquesas
• Best Wood Carvings: The Marquesas
• Best Yogurt: Mami Nova brand (we found in Tahiti, imported from France)
• Cleanest Fuel: Thursday Island, Australia
• Days on land/days at sea: 141/70 = 33% time at sea
• Deepest anchorage: 100 feet in Bay of Virgins, Fatu Hiva, French Polynesia
• Deepest dive Christi: 130 feet in Luganville, Vanuatu
• Deepest Dive Eric: 102 feet in Niue
• Favorite Dive Spot: Fakarava, French Polynesia
• Friendliest People: Niue
• Least expensive destination: Timor, Indonesia
• Longest passage at sea: 21 days from San Diego to Nuka Hiva, French Polynesia
• Most amazing land destination: active volcano in Tanna, Vanuatu (found in blog under Efate)
• Most boats in a single anchorage: Tahiti, French Polynesia
• Most expensive destination: Bora Bora, French Polynesia
• Most expensive fuel: Cairns, Australia
• Most frustrating check in/check out experience: Fiji (we were unlucky. Most have no issues)
• Most remote from civilization: Suwarrow, Cook Islands
• Most Unique Land Animals: Tropical Dome, Cairns, Australia
• Restaurant with best value for the quality: Chef’s in Nadi, Fiji
• Restaurant with worst value for the dollar: Hotel Bora Bora, Bora Bora, French Polynesia
• Scariest Event: Getting the anchor stuck on the sunken sailboat in Apataki, French Polynesia
• Shallowest anchorage: 10 feet in Moorea, French Polynesia
• Strongest winds: 39 knots during a squall on passage from Australia to Indonesia
• Total distance traveled: 9,959 Nautical Miles (11,452 statute miles, 18,320 Kilometers)
• Total engine hours: 1676
• Total generator hours: 767
• Worst seas: Suwarrow to Niue passage (waves as high as 14 feet – not fun!)

It will be very interesting to see what 2008 has in store for us. We hope it is just as good – or even better – than our wonderful 2007.