Emergency Stop on Passage from Annapolis to Bermuda

Wednesday, November 5, 2025 — It was a sunny and relatively warm morning at 64-degrees Fahrenheit — the warmest day we’ve had in weeks. It was nice that it was pleasant out as we did all the last minute things that needed to be done before we left on the long passage, including returning the car. Here was another shot of how pretty it was in the marina right now.

As Eric was disconnecting the electrical cables, he noted that the Y-connector was looking like it was beginning to deteriorate. We noted that we should replace it soon.  

We untied from the dock at 1100. We’d decided to make this passage on Sunday. Since then, the forecast has deteriorated. As of yesterday, the conditions were not supposed to be good at any point of the 5-day passage, but they also weren’t supposed to be terrible for any of the days, either. We’d debated postponing the trip, but decided that we’d rather be uncomfortable at sea, on our way to warmer weather, than uncomfortable in the cold in Annapolis. We’d never planned to have Kosmos in a cold location and simply did not have the proper gear onboard, and we couldn’t take the cold anymore.  

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Keith’s Perspective on Gettysburg and Our Fourth Week in Annapolis/Le point de vue de Keith sur Gettysburg et notre quatrième semaine à Annapolis

This week has been fun. On Saturday, we drove up to Pennsylvania to see the leaves change color. We stopped at an Italian restaurant, which I thought was going to be meh but it turned out to be really really good. Afterwards we went to Gettysburg. Mom promised that we wouldn’t go to a museum, but dad had other plans! We went to the museum of the Gettysburg address. I learned that I was very bored and that my parents are liars (just kidding). Mom is saying I have to put something I learned, so I learned that Abraham Lincoln was not the main speaker at the dedication of the cemetery where he gave the address. 

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The Maritime Museum in Annapolis, MD

Friday, October 31 — This morning it felt like 38 degrees with wind chill factor. Christi had a hard time dragging herself outside to watch the sunrise. Because of the cold, she didn’t stay outside long, but she was glad she at least got to enjoy a few minutes of the lovely dawn, Here were a couple shots:

We were pleased to report that this morning, the flooding was gone and all was back to normal in the marina. While Christi and Keith did school, Eric cleaned the sea strainers. There was lots of mud in them and two live fish! One fish was long and skinny. He thought it looked like a snake and wondered if it was an eel.  

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Flooding in Annapolis, MD

Thursday, October 30 — Yesterday, morning, we spent a long time discussing whether we should leave Annapolis today for Bermuda. The forecasts promised good weather for the passage. But… Hurricane Melissa, which had decimated Jamaica on Tuesday as a category 5, was still in the Caribbean. It had calmed down to a category 3 and was en route to Bermuda. It was expected to calm down to a tropical storm by the time it hit Bermuda and would be long gone by the time Kosmos arrived. But we’d learned the hard way that when there was a hurricane in the broader area, it could make local forecasts inaccurate, so we ultimately decided that the forecasts couldn’t be trusted and it was best to stay put.

Meanwhile, a storm was coming from the north that was supposed to hit tonight. While Christi and Keith were doing school, Eric spent a long time adjusting the lines and added 4 more lines in anticipation of the storm. For perspective to help understand the tide swings, the first photo was taken near low tide, the second photo near high tide.

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The National Military Park Museum in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania – Part 5

continued… Three weeks after the battle ended, Gettysburg attorney David Willis wrote to the Pennsylvania governor and proposed a new cemetery location in Gettysburg where the soldiers in the temporary graves could be properly buried. Wills got the approval from the governor and purchased the 17-acres of land. He hired a landscape architect, who designed the cemetery as a semi-circle, with soldiers of each state buried together in distinct sections.

Moving the bodies from the temporary graves to the cemetery sounded like it was a tough job. Wills paid contractors $1.59 per body moved. 3,555 bodies were moved within two years. It sounds like they were diligent to make sure all the Union soldiers bodies were moved… and it sounds like many Confederate soldiers bodies were overlooked for a decade. After the overlooked bodies were finally exhumed, they weren’t buried at the cemetery in Gettysburg — instead, they were shipped south.

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