We are pleased to report that Part 2 of The Unexpected Circumnavigation is selling well (for a self-published book, at least). We haven’t gotten much feedback as of yet, but so far all of it has been good. If you want to read some excerpts, there is one in The Mariner Magazine taken from Chapter 1 (starts on page 18) and one on Lulu with the first few pages of the prologue (click on preview link under image of book). If you have already read the book, we’d appreciate if you would rate it on Lulu, as well.

Part 1 is also selling well. Sales had been steady for most of 2011, but since Part 2 came out, sales of Part 1 have leaped up.

We are nearly finished with our next book project, a workbook called Recipe for Success: What My Cruising Will Cost Me. The text is more or less complete, but we are finding it harder to format a workbook than a reading book. We didn’t have much time to work on it over the holidays, but now that things have slowed down, we hope to have it done by the end of the month. Once Recipe for Success is finished, Christi will focus on Part 3 of The Unexpected Circumnavigation. 

In personal news, Christi is now 32 weeks pregnant. Less than two months to go! She continues to have a mild pregnancy overall. Her first trimester she was tired and bloated, but she never got nauseous or sick. According to What To Expect When You Are Expecting, the more prone you are to motion sickness, the more prone you are to morning sickness. Thanks to all those rough days at sea, it now takes a crazy amount of motion for Christi to get sick. All those miserable days at sea have paid off!

The second trimester she felt good overall. While she did have several typical second trimester symptoms, such as stuffy ears, heartburn and leg cramps, all were infrequent and minor.

Now well into her third trimester, she is becoming increasingly uncomfortable as she gets bigger and increasingly tired now that she has to exert more energy to do every day activities. She also has bloating and heartburn when she eats too much in one sitting, and gets light headed when she is dehydrated, so she is now eating many small meals per day and getting plenty of fluids. This eating pattern is familiar, though. When we are at sea, we also eat small amounts all day long instead of big meals, which helps prevent sea sickness.

Throughout the whole pregnancy she has needed more sleep than normal. Much to her frustration, she’s also suffered from “baby brain” all along, and it seems to get worse daily. She’s also one of the lucky 1/3 of women whose allergy issues worsen during pregnancy.

Here is a photo of her in early July, right after we found out she was pregnant and another one taken yesterday.

When the baby was 28 weeks old, we had a 4D sonogram done. The 4D technology is amazing! Look at how clearly the baby can be seen in the womb! He definitely has Eric’s nose and eye shape. As far as the doctors can tell, he seems to be healthy, which we are grateful for.