Day 13 — 0900 UTC location: 19°01.60’N by 041°50.40’W and 1621 nm from Las Palmas. Yesterday’s average speed was 5.4 knots at 1500 RPM.

Conditions:
The seas have been slightly better today, but only slightly. They are still no fun. We are still getting 6 8 foot swells from two directions that clash with one another. The waves are still 2 3 feet. Both the swells and the waves are sharp, so these aren’t gentle rolls we are experiencing. Where it is getting better is the degree of roll. We are still experiencing the constant 5 10 degree roll both directions, but now we are seeing more 5’s and less 10’s, which really does help. We’re still getting the periodic 20 degree roll. We’re still getting hit with frequent squalls, and a couple of them had lightening. In between squalls, the wind is consistent at 13 20 from aft. During squalls, wind is erratic. Of course, the squalls are keeping the seas from flattening out. Today was mostly bright and sunny in between squalls. The moon is almost full, so tonight visibility is excellent when the moon out. Even when the moon is hidden behind the clouds, visibility is still good.

News:
We were boarded tonight. The guy made a sudden appearance at the threshold of the open starboard pilothouse door just as Christi was walking by. It gave her quite the startle and she screamed. But, clearly the new passenger did not belong aboard, so Eric brushed him over the side. Of course, we get boarded all the time by flying fish, but we’ve never had one actually almost make it inside. And he was an extra big guy.

We can no longer make radio contact with the sailboats on the net. They are too far away. At 0200 Colin calculated we are 1000 miles from land in any direction, which is one of the farthest points away from land you can possibly be in the world. And we still see birds, all the way out here. We are in about 16000 feet of water. At about 1630, we crossed the 25,000 mile mark. Eric is really excited because we get another Nordhavn distance pennant now.

It was yet another hot day. Between the natural heat and the engine heat, it is so hot in the engine room that you can easily burn yourself on the metal. The water in the water tanks is also incredibly warm. At the coldest setting the water comes out warm, and at a lukewarm setting, it is scalding hot. And, of course, we have to do our usual whining about how hot and stuffy the living quarters are, particularly downstairs, and particularly when a squall comes through. Fortunately, the squalls generally pass quickly, but there still is just not enough ventilation downstairs, and between the heat, rocking and smell, it is getting hard to sleep down there.

We are all getting bored. We are so ready to get off the boat, and every time we remember we still have 8 days to go, we sigh.

Day 14 – 0900 UTC location: 18°40.50’N by 044°16.20’W and 1762 nm from Las Palmas. Yesterday’s average speed was 5.9 knots at 1500 RPM.

Conditions (which is newsworthy today):
The sea conditions pretty much stayed the same as last reported through the night. This morning the wind decided to switch directions, which seriously added to the confusion and made the ride even more uncomfortable. The wind waves are now up to 5 7 feet — almost as big as the swells. The swells are still coming from two directions, which is not the same direction as the wind waves. Between swell and waves, we have a combo of 10 14 feet of power lunging at us from three directions. And we are getting hit hard at times. At one point, a big wave came over the pilot house and some water came in through the open hatch.

About a quarter to 1600 a nasty looking formation came on us. It was actually three or four separate small squalls, possibly even as many as 5 or 6, that happened to all converge together right over us to make one giant super squall all the way around us. This is the storm on our radar. Remember, only super dense clouds show up on the radar. It was time for the air conditioning since we tightly sealed up the boat for the impending sheets of rain.

Nasty turned out to be an understatement. It was horrible. The rain was torrential, and visibility was down to only 200 yards. The winds were strong and erratic, suddenly changing both speed and direction several times. For 10 minutes we had head winds of 38 knots apparent on the nose, then fortunately, the wind shifted again, this time to the port side. It was rocking like crazy, with swings consistently about 15 degrees each way, with the occasional 30 thrown in. We all had to hold on. The weirdest effect happened the tops of the waves went glassy smooth, almost like sand dunes. There was a streaky appearance, like lines cutting through the sand. There was lots of mist in the air, which gave the scene kind of a foggy eerie murder mystery movie look to it. It was pretty and neat to look at. Pictures do not do it justice.

By 1730 the wind was back on our rear, with steady gusts from 28 36 apparent, with gusts up to 40 apparent. That is officially gale force 8 winds. The wind is forcefully pushing Kosmos along, and our speeds have jumped up to the high 6’s and low 7’s. At one point we hit 7.7. If we didn’t have the paravanes out, speeds would probably be in the 7’s 8’s. The squalls did break apart after not too much longer, but the wind remained. As of this writing at 2200, it is still gusting at 15 28 knots apparent from the starboard aft.

This is by far the worst day at sea on this passage. The day was mostly cloudy, but in the night we had only scattered clouds and excellent visibility. As a sidebar, Colin commented that on a sailboat that storm would have been possibly life threatening, especially when the wind made that drastic direction change to the nose. However, aboard Kosmos, the most drastic scare we got was at one point a wave was so big that Colin had to set down his tea for fear of spilling it. Eric and Christi blame Colin for the storm. He had been wondering how the boat would perform in rough seas and poof. We told him no more wondering is allowed.

News:
We picked up the RPM to 1600 since the remaining range is looking good. We crossed the 2/3 mark today. Less than 1,000 miles to go. We’re in the home stretch now. We are all so ready for the rocking to stop and to get off the boat. Could you remind us again why we thought traveling on a boat would be fun?