On days 6 and 7, the seas went from really uncomfortable to quite miserable. Seas were 10 to 12 feet and confused, with lots of those nasty big beam waves. While Eric was in the shower we were hit with one of those big waves. Eric said the boat rolled over so far on its side that the porthole (window) was completely underwater. Jaime said one of the most memorable moments of his time with us is standing at the back of the boat watching the huge waves go up way over the top of Kosmos.

On days 8 and 9 we had several neighbors drop by to say hello. Here are shots of a couple of them (notice the lime green feet).

Of course, they were kind enough to leave some trinkets behind for us to mop up on deck. Sea conditions got a little better on day 8, dropping back down to merely uncomfortable with 6 8 foot seas. Uncomfortable is a big step up from miserable.

On day 8 we also hit a new milestone. We rolled up 10,000 miles on the odometer. 8,200 of those miles have been done in the last 6 months. As of today, we have been on our journey for 176 days. Out of those days, we have spent 58 of those days at sea, for a ratio of 33% of sea time. A few of those days have been nice days, but the vast majority if our time at sea the conditions have ranged from uncomfortable to miserable. We are told it will get better when we leave the Pacific. We hope so!

Today is day nine, and the last day, of our passage. After so many days of rough seas, we were excited about getting to the reef. Inside the reef it is protected from swells, and we were desperate to get to the calmer waters. We approached the reef at 04:00, while it was still dark. The pass is about a mile 1 wide, giving us lots of room to maneuver. The pass is 15 miles long, so it took a couple hours to get through it. We had no qualms about going in at dark because we had good charts everything matched up (navigation lights, radar, and depth)

Much to our relief, sea conditions improved considerably once we were inside the reef.
As the sun came up, we could see the main land in the distance ahead and a few islands dotting the horizon to our north and south. The main land is hilly and green, with parts of it enshrouded in clouds. The water is an emerald green, which is new for us. All the deep water we have seen until now has always been a sapphire blue. As we got closer we could see the city of Cairns in the distance. The coastline appears to be all built up, but the mountains behind it look untouched. There are several tall buildings.

Right around 08:00 we had a slew of tourist boats pass us on their way from Cairns out to the reef. Some were small, some were huge, and most of them jam packed with people.

We pulled into the marina at around 09:00. The marina is located right in the heart of downtown Cairns, at the mouth of the Trinity Inlet river, where the river runs into Trinity Bay In front of the marina is a fancy hotel with an attractive almost cape codesque architectural style. There is a pedestrian boardwalk between the hotel and the marina entrance. We could see the ground floor of the hotel is lined with restaurants, with the entrances to them all on the boardwalk. There is a new looking tall building directly to the left of the hotel, and in the gap between the two buildings we could see a couple more tall buildings in the background. To the right there is a construction zone.

It felt so good to stand on the dock almost as good as terra firma! We were all exuberant about another successful passage.