Day 2

The slow speeds continued all night. Eric was starting to worry that we were dragging a fishing net, but the current eventually changed and we sped up. Eric heard the Pilipino monkey boy on the radio in the early morning before dawn. He was shocked. What is that guy doing here? Eric suspects it is an imposter.

Like yesterday, the day was sunny with just a little bit of haze and perfect temperatures. There was still no real wind or wind chop, but the swells were just as bad. At 1030, we rolled up 5,000 hours on the engine. That is 208 full 24 hour days! Wow. We really have spent a lot of time at sea, haven’t we? After 5,000 hours in every kind of condition imaginable, we can accurately say that Kosmos has averaged pretty much exactly 6.0 nautical miles per hour. We can go a bit faster if we burn more fuel, but overall in real world conditions, 6 is what we get.

At 1130, we almost hit a turtle. When we did our every few minute scan of the horizon, we saw that we were bearing down on the little guy. We took the engine out of gear, which didn’t stop us but slowed us down. Once the little guy swam away, we resumed our normal course.

At around 1230, we went from essentially no wind to 13 15 knots apparent right on the nose. The wind change was almost instantaneous. At around 1300, we could see a visible line where the flat seas ended and suddenly the ocean was full of small whitecaps. As we crossed over the line into the choppy seas, the wind picked up to 18 knots real, and within a few minutes had jumped all the way up to 25 apparent on the nose. Once we got to the 25 mark, Kosmos started bucking like a bronco bull and the front windows were consistently smacked by sea spray. It was no fun at all. Apparently, the waters we had been in earlier were protected from the wind, and the visible line was where the protection ended. The good news is that the current is with us right now, so at the moment we are still making good time, despite the seas. We suppose we should slow down so we don’t bash as hard, but we really want to get as many miles in as we can before the current switches directions.

At around 1800, we made a waypoint change that softened the angle that we were taking the waves from. We are getting a little side to side movement in addition to the pitching, but we think the dual motion is more tolerable than the harsher pitching alone. But everyone is sensitive to different types of motion, and others would have a harder time with this angle. Of course, by that point the current had shifted and we were slowing down. Watching the speeds slowly but steadily drop makes us feel like we will be in this ugly mess forever.

At 2200, the wind suddenly dropped down to 9 13 knots apparent. But, the seas didn’t improve. They actually may have been worse after the wind dropped. To make matters worse, we were only doing 4.5 knots. Sigh. It is officially cold in the pilot house. In addition to the sweater and pants, Christi has wrapped herself up in a blanket, too. Downstairs the temperature is perfect. We need the ventilation, particularly downstairs, so we aren’t going to close up the pilot house, despite the cold.

The good news is that the moon was luminous and the sky was so lit up it was almost like daylight. Being able to see at night is so comforting. It really takes a lot of the edge off night runs.

Day 3

Christi heard the self-proclaimed monkey boy this morning in the wee hours. You remember right? The one who says “monkey, monkey, monkey” on the hailing channel 16 trying to bait people to respond and then proceeds with various racial slurs. She is 100% sure it is an imposter. First of all, the guy has a different accent. But accent aside, his voice is more hoarse and less shrill. Fortunately for us, Mr. Imposter is only mildly annoying and not at all offensive. And, he was only on the radio for a few minutes instead of hours on end. We can’t understand why anyone would want to emulate a jackass like the monkey boy.

As the moon set this morning, it got more and more orange-yellow the deeper in the sky it sank, just like a sunset. We have seen the moon do that many a time, and we always find it to be equally marvelous. It is so pretty and special, and easier on the eyes than a sunset.

By 0700, the seas had definitely gotten better, but it still is not a fun — or even mildly pleasant — ride. The hobby horsing is a genuinely an uncomfortable motion. Even though it is less severe, there really is only so much of that kind of motion you can take before it wears on you emotionally.

You can imagine our relief when at 0900, we came around the corner into Bahia Navidad (Christmas Bay). From our vantage point, this bay is incredibly misleading. It looks like a small bay with only mild protection from the wind and swells. Some of the shoreline is sandy beach, some of it is dramatic, rocky cliffs that look almost sheared off. The foliage is that same dry forest, but it doesn’t seem to be as dense here as it is farther south.

The shoreline appears to be a solid land mass. It doesn’t look like there is a channel anywhere in the land mass. The northern end of the bay is indeed a solid land mass, but 2/3 of the way down, it narrows into a slender peninsula. There is a large island just off the tip of the peninsula that makes up the southern end of the bay. There is a small channel between the peninsula tip and the island that leads into a large lagoon. The channel and lagoon are a natural formation. The Spaniards set up a shipyard here in the early 1500’s to build galleons (a type of ship) for the conquistadores. In the 1600’s production moved to Acapulco and this little lagoon fell into obscurity.

The time here is out of sync with the sun, so the sun rises around 0830. So, as if the entrance wasn’t tricky enough, at that point we were completely blinded by the early morning sun. We navigated around some hazardous rocks on the outer edges of the bay and made the approach towards the channel. It was really hard to see until we were pretty close to it. We were having an even harder time seeing the channel markers. The electronic charts were definitely off. We were hesitant about entering. Only the fairway was dredged and the un-dredged areas can be hazardously shallow in spots. We decided going in was simply too risky.

We heard a boat call the marina on the radio. It sounded like they come to this marina often, or at least often enough for them to expect the Dock Master to know who they were by name. They wanted to know if they could go back to their same slip or if they had been re-assigned. We saw a big power yacht in the distance coming towards us and figured this must be the boat on the radio. When it passed us, we confirmed the name. Confident they knew what they were doing, we followed them in.

The channel rounded the peninsula. To our left, the lagoon opened up, with two small islands in the middle. It is shallow water in there. Ahead there were more fairway markers that would take us past another peninsula a little farther ahead and into yet another, even bigger lagoon. The anchorage is in the bigger, more protected lagoon. But we followed the powerboat as it turned right into another short channel that led into the marina on Isla Navidad (Christmas Island).

As we were turning the corner, we could see at least a dozen sailboat masts sticking up above the low little island in the anchorage. Then we took a look at the marina and saw it was half empty, occupied mostly by very large and expensive power boats. The few sailboats in there were also very expensive. Hmmm”¦ this is not a good sign. The marina is part of Wyndham hotel, so we expected it to be swanky. But judging from the kinds of boats in here, it is probably going to be even more expensive than we were anticipating. We found a spot and tied up. No one came to help us and Christi got the boat tied up all by herself. It has been a long time since she has had to do it all herself, and she did it with no problem, though, granted a bit slowly. Of course, Eric went back and re-adjusted all the lines later, but whatever.

To be continued”¦