When we woke up we noticed a big pot of gold on the bow of the boat. We were baffled as to where it came from until the guy from the boat next to us dropped off this picture.

Well that explains the gold! All kidding aside, somehow we had missed this gorgeous rainbow and we were enthralled by the photo. So, back to what we have been up to. Yesterday, we went on another dive in the area around where Kosmos is anchored. We saw pretty much the same coral and fish as we did last time, but it was still just as fun the second time around. Actually, it may have been more fun. Each time we dive, we get a little more comfortable with being under and with our equipment, making it easier to enjoy the scenery.

We were supposed to spend the rest of the day getting Kosmos ready to leave. We were heading out the next day (today) for Niue. Eric wound up visiting several boats in the anchorage while Christi took a long nap. The guys on one of the boats informed Eric that the most promiscuous women are on Puka Puka and advised a stop there. So, now we are changing our itinerary. Just kidding about the itinerary. In the evening we continued to procrastinate getting ready to go and watched a movie instead.

This morning we had no time left to procrastinate, so we got to work as soon as we got up. Chore number was to clean the waterline and bottom. We only had an hour to spend on that task if we were going to leave on time. Neither the waterline or bottom were that bad compared to last time, but they were bad enough that an hour wasn’t enough to get everything scrubbed well. It’ll definitely need to be done again when we get to Niue. At least the bottom got a good once over before the upcoming passage. For those of you that are non-boaters, growth on the sides and bottom slows you down, so ideally you want to cast off with a nice, clean bottom before a long passage.

Before putting up the hard dinghy, we went to shore to say goodbye to John, Veronica and the kids. We brought some chicken and bread as a thank you for the all the fish. We hung out with them for an hour or so, and then headed back to Kosmos to finish getting ready. It was sad to say goodbye to them. We really enjoyed our time with them.

We finished doing the usual get ready stuff and lifted anchor. Much to our surprise, we had a little trouble getting the anchor chain up. When it was finally up, we waved our goodbyes to the caretaker family that was congregated under the gazebo. They waved to us animatedly from the shore.

We were even sadder about leaving when we left the lagoon and got into the open ocean. The weather forecast had been 5 to 8 foot seas. Eight feet seas make for an uncomfortable, but tolerable ride. Eight is about our upper limit of tolerance. So, we knew it would be a rough ride when we left. The seas turned out to be 6 to 10 feet and very close together. The wind was 20 knots on our beam (side). There were whitecaps everywhere.

The seas are coming from the aft rear corner (left, back), with frequent, large wind chop waves hitting us squarely on the port beam (left side). The beam waves often hit us with so much force that it makes a huge thud on the hull. Most of them roll us between 10 and 20 degrees to the starboard (right), and 5 10 degrees to port (left) as Kosmos rights herself. But we get frequent waves that roll us a full 35 degrees to the starboard and 20 degrees to the port that are miserable. And now and then we get a wave so big it rolls us 35 degrees starboard, 35 degrees port, and another 20 degrees starboard before Kosmos is able to correct herself. We feel like we are inside a pinball machine when those hit us.

We have complained often that beam waves roll the boat from side to side and are much more uncomfortable than waves coming from the front or back. The combination of seas from the back and from the side makes the ride miserable. Between the regular waves from the back corner and the side waves, you can imagine that we are severely rocking and rolling from all directions. And, worst of all, the intervals between waves from both directions are painfully short.

When it is rough like this you can’t do anything can’t walk around the boat or you’ll be thrown about by the waves. You only walk around when absolutely necessary and then you have to hold the boat with both hands to avoid being knocked over. So you spend most of your time sitting or laying down. You can’t read, use the computer or watch movies. We tried to watch a movie and both got sick only a few minutes into it. On your watch you stare at the clock constantly, willing time to move by faster. Off watch you lay in bed, whether sleeping or not, since that is the most comfortable and secure place to be. Preparing and eating food is especially challenging. Food in the cabinets and refrigerator come flying at you when you open the cabinet/fridge doors. We are so sad about not having any frozen microwave food, which are by far the easiest things to pull out and prepare. We eat and drink small quantities at a time to make sure it stays down.