Day 19 – 1000 UTC location: 16°52.00’N by 056°34.00’W and 2474 nm from Las Palmas. Yesterday’s average speed was 5.8 knots.

Conditions:
Around 0130, the seas picked up even more, though the wind was still dead. It was still an OK ride, but not nearly as nice as it was. By morning, the wind had picked up to 10 knots apparent and shifted to our nose. The swells were only at 4 6 feet on our starboard beam, but they were coming from two directions, north and northeast. The wind waves were at 1 – 2 feet and choppy. The wave intervals and force had picked up, so it was definitely rougher than yesterday. Eric commented that it felt like head seas, not beam seas. Within a few hours the wind shifted to the starboard beam at 12 knots and stayed there the rest of the day. The seas slowly got lumpier throughout the day. The ride actually wasn’t too bad, but probably only because of the dual stabilization. The day was completely overcast and it rained lightly on and off. Once again, the moon didn’t rise until after midnight and it was dark until it rose. It is only a half moon now. Have we really been out here long enough for the moon to go from a sliver to full then back down to half?

News:
We made contact with the sailboats again. 3 of the 4 are having problems with their sails. In addition to hearing about their assorted sail failures, they complained about there not being enough wind to make decent time. Speaking of failures, we forgot to mention a very big piece of news. A few days back, we had a failure. Our starboard navigation light burned out. Eric had to walk outside and change the bulb. It took about 2 minutes, but boy, that piece of excitement certainly made those two minutes go by fast. Colin was sleeping and was devastated he couldn’t be a part of the repair team.

We have gotten very low on the “no effort” foods (frozen meals, canned foods). All our favorite stuff is long gone and what is left is not particularly appealing. Christi actually broke down and made some pasta today because none of the “ready meal” choices sounded good to her. She never cooks on passage, so this was a shock to Eric. We have been spending a lot of time talking about all the food we want to eat in port. We are getting a bit desperate for fresh produce. Guadalupe supposedly has the best food in the Caribbean, so we have high hopes for some excellent meals. We are all so eager to make landfall.

Day 20 — 1000 UTC location: 16°32.00’N by 058°56.00’W and 2611 from Las Palmas. Yesterday’s average speed was 5.7 knots.

Conditions:
Conditions stayed lumpy through the night and all morning, with swells at 5 feet, and waves 3-4 feet, both from the starboard beam. The wind was blowing at 15 knots from the same direction. The wind and seas calmed down a little bit in the evening. Day was bright with scattered clouds, the kind of wispy things you can see blue sky through. Moon again rose after midnight.

News:
This is our last full day at sea. Tomorrow morning we are going to be on terra firma. We are so excited we can’t stand it. At 2200, Eric saw land on the radar 33 miles out. We are so close! We also heard activity on the VHF radio, something we haven’t had in about 19 days now.

And on to some blog questions:

Q: Do you miss American politics? Did you guys get to vote absentee in the US presidential election?
A: We both miss American politics and try hard to keep up with the happenings at home. Eric was obsessed, and we do mean obsessed, with the election and desperately sought after news regarding the election every minute he possibly could. Fortunately, we were in Europe, where current info was readily available. Eric stayed up all night long to watch the election coverage. We both registered to vote absentee, but only Eric’s ballot showed up. Christi was sad she couldn’t cast her vote.

We have talked politics with a lot of people world wide and we have been surprised to learn that except in the most remote villages, most everyone in the world is keenly aware of American politics. Interestingly enough, many Aussies and Europeans we talk seem to have a better grasp on American politics than some Americans did before we left home (our understanding is that in general people paid more attention in 2008 than in years prior).

While we have missed a lot in the American politics realm, we have learned a lot about world politics. We usually ask the locals we talk to a lot of questions about how things are done in their country. Seeing how government systems and policies affect people, whether for good or bad, certainly has had a big impact on our views. The reality of a situation is not always what you would expect it to be, and every system has pros and cons.

Q: How do you handle using the master head amidships when someone is asleep?
A: For those who don’t know, the light switch is on the outside of the bathroom, which means you have to turn the light on/off while the door is open. The flash of light used to wake us up. We have gotten used to it and it rarely wakes us anymore. Likewise, we now sleep through the sound of the door opening and closing, the toilet flushing, the shower running, etc.

Q: What options would you change on your boat?
A: We have discussed options a few times now. They can be found at https://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/2008/05/19/celebrating-a-milestone-male-to-port-salalah-days-5-6/,
https://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/2007/08/30/passage-from-bora-bora-to-suwarrow/, https://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/2008/05/18/male-maldives-to-port-salalah-oman-day-1-4/
Since then, we have added a few things to the list:
“¢ Turn the fridge in the hallway into a hanging locker. That fridge is just flat out dangerous.
“¢ Put dorade vents in the pilot house
“¢ Have a second inverter as a back up. We’ve had no problems with ours, but the lack of redundancy makes us nervous.
“¢ Also potentially wire that second inverter to the air conditioning units, not to run the compressor, but to run the fans to help circulate air underway.
“¢ Have a second VHF radio with a mounted small antenna for parts of the world where people abuse the radio. That way we can monitor channel 16 without listening to as much needless and annoying chitter chatter. The handheld works well for this too, but it would be nice to have the in dash type unit for this.
“¢ Window tint to help cut the glare.