Where in the World Are We?

We interrupt “blog time” to bring you a “real time” announcement”¦ Yesterday, April 21st, 2009, at 1730 Pacific time, we officially completed our world wide circumnavigation! No, we aren’t back in San Diego yet. We are in Ensenada, Mexico, but since we have been to Ensenada on Kosmos before, we technically “tied the knot” when we arrived here.

We plan to complete our San Diego to San Diego World Circumnavigation on Saturday, May 2. Several people have said they would like to see us physically pull into San Diego, so we are going to have a “Welcoming” at the public dock on Coronado Island, which is behind the restaurant named Peohe’s at 1210 First Street, Coronado, CA 92118. Our welcoming is not associated with Peohe’s, so don’t wander in there looking for us, come right out to the dock.

We should be arriving to the dock around 10:00 am, depending on how long it takes to clear customs. We plan to stay at the dock about two hours or so. This is not a party there won’t be food or drinks. It is not an open house, either we won’t be giving tours or rides on board Kosmos. But we will visit with everyone who comes out to welcome us home. We are excited to see our friends and family again on that day, and looking forward to meeting any blog readers who may decide to come out.

We know, we know”¦ you probably want to know why the blog says we are in Dominica when we are really in Ensenada. Think about it logically. We write a journal entry every day, but we only post 5 days a week. Over the 2 years, we have fallen progressively farther behind real time.

But wait”¦ now that you are done, will the blog postings stop? No, we’ll continue to post our daily journal in “blog time” through to the end of the trip, so you have several more months worth of posts to look forward to. And there are some good stories coming up! For example our trip through the Panama canal, white water rafting in Costa Rica, anchoring in 40 knot winds in Nicaragua, eating tacos pastor in Huatulco, our trip summary, and many more.

Welcome to Portsmouth, Dominica

At midnight we heard a loud crash on the top deck. It was windy and rainy and very dark out from the lack of stars and moon. We turned on the lights and looked out the back windows. Everything looked fine. The kayaks, dinghy and dock boxes were all secure. Eric went outside briefly and glanced at the top deck. All looked fine. We couldn’t figure out for the life of us what caused the crashing sound.

About the same time as the crash, the wind calmed down some and the seas started to improve a little. By 0100, we were in the lee of Guadalupe and the ride became smooth and nice. The wind was blocked by the big mountains on Basse Terre, so it died down to 3 5 knots. There are definitely a lot more lights at night on Guadeloupe than on Antigua, but it is no surprise since Guadeloupe has 450,000 people and Antigua only has 72,000.

We left the shelter of Guadalupe at about 0400 and it was instantly back to not being a fun ride. At sunrise, Dominica was visible, but the big mountains were mostly enshrouded in clouds. As morning progressed Continue reading

History of Dominica

Dominica is not the same place as the Dominican Republic. Dominica (dah-mah-nee-kah) is an independent country made up of a single island, located in between the French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. The Dominican Republic (Doh-min-ick-an) shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, several hundred miles northwest of Dominica. Dominica is 290 square miles and has a population of 72,400. It features the highest mountains in the Eastern Caribbean. It has fertile soil and plenty of rainfall, making it the “bread basket” of the Caribbean.

The first inhabitants on the island are believed to be Continue reading

Start of the Passage from English Harbor to Portsmith, Dominica

Yesterday was chore day. Eric changed the forward racor fuel filter, changed the generator racor fuel filter, changed the main on engine fuel filter, changed the generator on engine fuel filter, changed the transmission oil and filter, ran the wing engine, and replaced the sea strainer for the diaphragm bilge pump. Eric also put the storm plates back on the salon (living room) windows, which we had taken down for the boat waxing. He also put Lanicote corrosion protector on the screws for the storm plates.

Christi did laundry, cleaned, and did the never ending and thankless job of reorganizing storage spaces.

This morning we walked over to Falmouth Harbor to go Continue reading

SCUBA diving around English Harbor

Today we went diving. We booked with the dive company located in Nelson’s Dockyard. The cost was $89 USD per person since we had our own gear, and without gear it is $110. He swore to us that he is the cheapest dive company on the entire island.

There were four people total, the two of us, a French Canadian, and the dive master. We did our own gear on shore, then all loaded into an 18 foot, open fiberglass boat with an outboard motor. It is the kind of boat locals use for fishing, and hadn’t been customized for diving. There were no tank holders or anything like that; you just kind of threw all your gear in a pile on the floor. This is the first time ever we have been on a dive boat where there weren’t two dive operators, one to stay with the boat and one to go under.

The first dive spot was Continue reading