Yesterday the wind dropped a little more, down to 12 16 knots, still on the nose. Every day the ride gets a little bit better. Hopefully, this trend will last! For days we have seen no one, but now we are starting to see quite a few freighters, presumably on their way to/from the Red Sea. When we left Singapore, there was an obnoxious guy abusing channel 16. He was singing, whistling, making clicking noises and saying random things. Not only was he annoying, he was tying up the communication line so no one else could use it. When people would tell him to stop, he would attack the commenter, calling them monkeys with small bananas, as well as using obscene racial slanders. Well, guess what? He is back today. Same guy, same shenanigans. At one point someone told him to stop, and he responded by singing that Peter Gabriel “Monkey” song and improvising some of the words, then went off on a foul mouthed racial tirade. He was on the air for pretty much the whole day, so they are probably paralleling us. They would have been out of range sooner if they were going the opposite way.

Today we achieved a milestone. We are very excited to report that at 0310, we made it to the halfway point around the world! We are really proud of ourselves. Our marina in San Diego that we left from is at 117-10W longitude, and we now are at 62-50E longitude.

The distance from our slip to where we are now is 10,031 nautical miles (nm) as the crow flies, but we have actually gone 14,727 nautical miles since we haven’t followed an exactly straight line. 14,272 nm = 16,412 statute (American) miles = 26,403 kilometers. So far, we have spent a total of 105 days at sea for a ratio of 32% of our journey spent underway.

Also, to be clear, if you were to dig a hole from San Diego straight down, you would come out several hundred miles south of us, closer to Madagascar. The farthest possible distance from one spot to another on the globe is 10, 800 nm, so we are not at the exact opposite corner of the world, but we are darn close!

We suspect that we have completed more than 50% of the total miles we will do on this journey. Our route on the second half of the world is a straighter line than the first half was. But who knows… maybe we’ll take a detour or two along the way.

Today the radio chatter was non-stop. There were tons of ships calling one another, and many would have their complete conversations on channel 16 (for non-boaters, you are supposed to only use channel 16 to call someone, then switch to another channel for the conversation). There were a few people screwing around on the radio, too, most notably the monkey guy. We couldn’t believe that guy was still in range. Then we started paying attention to coordinates given during various conversations. We heard a call from 200 miles away. Then one from 300 miles. Then one from 500 miles. Normally, the maximum range on our radio is 50 miles. To pick up calls from 500 miles away is absolutely unbelievable.

While you would think it would be exciting to have such range, it was really quite annoying. The radio literally squawked non-stop. Then at 1815 (6:15pm), we got a distress call on the VHF radio that has GMDSS. Distress calls set off an incredibly loud alarm that sends your heart racing. Eric went over to the radio and determined it was fake. Fake MMSI number (radio registration), and no coordinates for rescue. Then the monkey boy started screwing around again, so we suspect it was the monkey guy who set it off.

And, a couple of blog questions:

Q: How are the major systems holding up, and what are the most significant issues you have had do deal with?
A: Major systems have been holding up well (knock on teak!). Most of our issues have been minor. The bilge pump (diaphram type) has needed to be repaired twice. Our secondary (spare) autopilot has also stopped working properly. Our boom has gotten progressively harder to twist over time. We need to do this twist each time we switch from paravane mode to dinghy lifting more. We now use a lever to twist it. Our port stabilizer is starting to squeak.

Q: Do you wish you had done anything differently when picking options for Kosmos?
A: Very minor things, really. We wish we got a “y” valve on the washer so the water from the laundry goes overboard instead of into the gray water tank. We wish we could have gotten drawer fridge and freezer instead of standard, but they were too much money and out of our budget. A solar switch for the anchor light would be helpful. If you are doing the kind of cruising we are, you may consider solar panels, a quiet wind generator and/or a water collection system. You don’t need them, but it is nice to not have to run the generator as often to make power/water. [80-81]