Wednesday, April 8 — The last few days have been low-key, mostly spent onboard.

On Monday, a Yacht Tech worker knocked on our door first thing in the morning, while Keith and Christi were doing school. Eric had no idea which projects they were going to do in which order, so while he’d already prepped the boat as much as he could, he couldn’t get completely ready without knowing the order. The worker said he was there to change the group 31 battery in lazarette that started generator and wing engine. Eric had to quickly empty out the laz so he could access the batteries.

Eric generally tried to do as much work on Kosmos as he could, and it was kind of hard for him to pay someone to do this task because it was something he could have done himself. However, doing so involved awkward twisting in a tight space, and he didn’t want to risk hurting himself again. 

While the technician was working in the lazarette, Eric removed the sight gauges on the two 60-gallon water saddle tanks. He’d thought it would be a terrible job involving moving both fridges, but on Friday, the supervisor who’d come out had said it would be easy, so Eric did it himself. It was indeed easy. Once he had undone the screws, we held buckets under the screw holes so the water could drain out. It dripped for a long time after we thought the tanks were already empty. After a few minutes, we had Keith run from port to starboard and back again for a few minutes to rock the boat and help drain the excess water. 

The sight gauges that Nordhavn installed were actually meant for fuel and were made of aluminum. They’d corroded within a few years and stopped working. For many years now, Eric has been relying on the sensor in the middle tank to know how much water was in that tank, and he guessed at what was in the saddle tanks (those tanks didn’t have sensors). Currently, the only way he knew exactly how much water was onboard was if all three tanks were completely full. Eric didn’t want to rely on only one sensor anymore. As an FYI, our water maker fills to one of the saddle tanks, which then flows into the main tank when the saddle tank valves are open.

Next, he prepped for the raw water pump to be replaced on the generator. Unfortunately, on Friday, Yacht Tech said they didn’t have the pump in stock, but they’d ordered it and was hoping it would arrive on Monday or Tuesday.

On Tuesday, it was stormy in the morning. We were awoken at 0530 by loud lightening. The rain died down in the afternoon, but returned again in evening. Eric spent the morning getting the engine room ready for work to be done, but no one from Yacht Tech ever came. Eric also went to West Marine and got plugs for the holes where the water gauge was. 

Wanting to get off the boat, in the early evening, we braved the rain and walked over to Belle’s for the early bird special dinner.

Today was another stormy morning. In between showers, a Yacht Tech subcontractor stopped by to look at window and gelcoat work we needed done. He said they’d send over an estimate. In the afternoon, it rained hard and was very windy. We were rocking and rolling in the slip.

Here was a rainbow in between rain showers.

On the topic of the marina… even on the best of days, this marina wasn’t as calm as one would expect. We often had big waves come in and we couldn’t figure out where they were came from. It was certainly calmer than being in an anchorage, but the continual motion kept the marina from being ideal.

The marina was attached to a condo complex that had manicured lawns. The lawns were currently blooming with several varieties of tiny little flowers. There were also lots of birds flitting around the lawns, too. Here were some photos taken near Kosmos.

And another observation about the marina…. we have not seen a single sailboat in here, only expensive, newer, high-end power boats. The marina clearly had a profile of clientele they wanted and were picky about who they’d let in. Kosmos was definitely the least valuable boat in the entire marina. We were a little worried that we’d be kicked out for lowering the property values of the neighboring vessels. 😉

On that note… over the years, we’ve mentioned a few times that we find it interesting how people treat us one way when they think we don’t own Kosmos and treat us differently when they realize we do. We haven’t changed at all — the only change was their belief about our status. It happened again today. At one point, Christi was crouched down in the grass near Kosmos, taking photos of the flowers. A marina employee walked up and questioned who she was and what she was doing. When she said she was taking photos of the flowers, he clearly thought she was nutty for photographing weeds. When she identified herself as the owner of the boat right there, the guy said “The Nordhavn? You own that Nordhavn?” She said yes. And all of a sudden, she went from nutty person who needed to be removed from the premises to quirky and eccentric. He even offered to look up the names of the flowers for her. People are funny.