11:00 — Yesterday afternoon the seas calmed down to where it wasn’t too bad. In the night it calmed down so much that the ride wasn’t bad at all. The wind died to practically nothing for a while. When the wind died, speed really picked up. But this morning, the wind returned with a vengeance. Wind was in the low 20’s, on the nose, and waves were angry and brutal. We slowed down to 1800 to reduce bashing. We are probably going to need to slow down even more. It is definitely in the miserable category right now. It is rocking so much that Christi’s tea splashed out of her cup and all over her while she was holding the cup steadily upright.

In good news, our 24 hour average was 7 knots, thanks to good speeds yesterday. We also crossed the Tropic of Cancer line a couple hours ago, so we are officially out of the tropics. In bad news, Eric wasn’t able to connect to the radio net today. Also, one of the belts on the engine starter battery alternator is starting to loose some of its teeth. It is something we were debating changing in Oman, but figured we ok. This is not the main alternator, and there are even two belts on this alternator. So if it breaks we are really fine. It is just something we will not want to change or deal with in rough seas.

1300 (1:00 pm) it just gets progressively worse and worse as the day goes on. It is really freaking miserable. The minutes tick by painfully slow. We are getting a ton of sea spray over the bow. It is nowhere near as close to as bad as the run up to Singapore, but that doesn’t make us feel any less miserable here and now.

1800 (7:00 pm) — conditions are not quite “hellacious”, but they are getting close. The wind is up to 28 knots. We are taking so much water over the bow that we had to close the pilot house hatch because the water from the waves was coming in through the hatch. The seas are huge. We are rocking all over the place and are pretty well miserable.

The monkey guy is gone, but there are several other people screwing around on the radio in his place. They are really annoying. They good news is combined they are not as bad as the monkey guy is on his own, however, it is disturbing that so many people think the radio is a toy. We have had to slow down to 1600 RPM to keep from bashing too hard, and the speeds are abysmal again at high 4’s to low 5’s. Eric is most depressed about the slow speeds. Our weather forecaster, Bob, said winds and seas would die down this afternoon, and Eric just keeps staring outside, desperately hoping Bob’s prediction comes true. Occasionally, we get waves that hit the windows with a big rush of water. We are both becoming grumpy and irritable from the conditions.

Many of you are probably wondering why we didn’t stop at one of the many culturally unique destinations between Oman and Egypt, such as Djibouti or Eritrea. Many of you are probably wondering why we have kept going in such unpleasant conditions instead of pulling over at one of the nice anchorages along the way to wait for better conditions. Many of you are probably wondering why we are running Kosmos so hard even though we have long been out of pirate territory. We have debated about disclosing this, but have decided we should. On day 2 of this passage, a family emergency arose and we need to get home ASAP. Eric’s Mom is very sick.

We agreed when we started we would fly home as soon as possible from wherever we were if our parents became seriously ill. It is one of things you have to be ready for when you go out to sea.

We debated turning back to Oman, but decided that a marina in Egypt was a better place to leave Kosmos than the anchorage in Oman. We are not sure how long we would be back in the USA. Anywhere nearby (Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia) would be bad or simply impossible. Also, if we left the boat in Oman, we would miss the Red Sea weather window and conditions going up the Red Sea would be worse than they are now. So we have been going as fast as possible to reach the first marina which is located in Port Ghalib, Egypt. [102]