Monday, September 5 — Here is the sunrise.

Eric had been so focused on the wind speed forecast that he’d forgotten to check swell size. Out in the Pacific, 100 miles west of Cabo San Lucas, the waves were expected be 44-feet at 15-seconds on Wednesday. Cabo’s forecast was 24-foot waves. We are so glad we moved north!

In our neck of the woods, on Thursday, when the storm would be at its peak up here, there would be 4-foot swells. But Friday morning the waves were supposed to build to 10 feet. Guess we won’t be going anywhere on Friday. The seas were expected to calm back down on Saturday.

Today was literally the calm before the storm. Knowing today would be the only truly calm day lit a fire under Christi’s butt to get a ton of chores done, including many of the non-urgent things that she’d been procrastinating on, such as giving Eric a haircut (she tried to give Keith a haircut, too, but Keith says he likes being shaggy).

On Kosmos, we have 3 refrigerator/freezer units. One unit has 2 refrigerator drawers, one unit has 2 freezer drawers, and one unit has one drawer of each. We decided that we’d eaten enough food out of the fridges/freezers that we could turn off the combo unit and consolidate the food into the respective other units. After defrosting and cleaning it, Christi embarked on a major re-organization project to move frequently-used kitchen items from hard to access areas into the giant, easy access space.  

Eric was worried that the chain was in a ball on the ground and that it could keep us from moving properly when the wind picked up. Eric backed the boat up to stretch out the chain. This put us much farther away from our neighbors than we were before, but also a lot closer to the rocks behind us. We’ll have to be ready to start the engine quick if we start to drag.  

All of the other boats were also busy prepping for the storm. Several more boats came into the anchorage. We believe that there were 18 by nightfall.

In the afternoon, Eric and Keith hung out with the other families. Christi declined to go because she was still going gangbusters on chores.

Here is the sunset. Look at how bright the moon is!

While we were outside watching the sunset, we noticed a turtle swimming near Kosmos

In the evening, one of the catamarans hosted a party. The majority of the boaters came out, including the two families. Everyone was in good spirits and had a great time. The weather forecast had improved some. While it would still be rough, there was a strong sense of camaraderie — we were about to go through a major event together, and we all knew that we had one another’s backs. This was truly a nice and helpful group of people.

It had been another roasting hot day, and it didn’t seem to cool down much after dark. It was so hot that it was hard to sleep.