Dawn on Friday, May 1
Today was the 17th anniversary of the completion of circumnavigation. But it was a busy day, so we didn’t have much of a chance to reflect. Kosmos was supposed to be put back in the water today, so the first thing we did upon waking up was to pack up our stuff and check out of the hotel. We went to the boat and dropped off our stuff. We saw that the painting work was completed, but they hadn’t removed the plastic yet (more on the painting below).
The sunrise on Sunday, April 12, 2026 was mostly blocked, but a sliver of sun managed to peep out from behind the clouds.
Saturday, Sunday and Monday were quiet days. We spent all three days doing chores around the boat in preparation for the haul out. We did lots of odds and ends, such as cooking up everything in the refrigerator that wouldn’t last for a couple of weeks and removing the storm plates from the windows. Last week, Eric had turned off the generator through-hull and opened up the generator so that the raw water pump could be changed. He got confirmation that it would be changed in the yard, so he put the generator back together and turned the through hull back to open on the off chance that it may need to be run. Someone came to pump out the blackwater tank. Eric and Keith also cleaned up rust stains that we’d noticed around the boat.
On Monday afternoon, we checked into a motel near the marina. It certainly wasn’t fancy, but it was the best deal in the area in terms of value for the money. Last year, this motel had been booked and Eric had been forced to stay farther away. He was happy about being closer this year.
Dawn on Friday, April 10, 2026
In school, Keith was currently studying about the United States’s rapid expansion during the 1800s. As part of the expansion, Native American people living in desirable locations were forced off their land and moved to less desirable locations. The Seminole Indians of Florida resisted, so the US waged three wars against this tribe and their allies. Many of these allies were either free blacks or runaway slaves that the Seminoles had welcomed into their tribe. These black people were referred to as Black Seminoles.
It was fortuitous that we happened to be studying the Seminole Wars while we were so close to where they’d occurred. We wanted to take Keith to a museum about the Seminole history and we found one that looked interesting in a town called Clewiston, located on the south shore of Lake Okeechobee and about halfway between the east and west coasts of Florida. Since it was nearly an equidistant drive between North Palm Beach and where Special Blend lived on the west coast of Florida, we asked them if they’d be interested in meeting us. They said they would.
In the morning, Eric talked to Yacht Tech about the sight gauges – unfortunately, those particular gauges weren’t made anymore. They decided the best course of action was to recycle the old gauges by changing the valves and cleaning up the corrosion. At the end of the conversation, Yacht Tech confirmed that no one was scheduled to come out to Kosmos today, so Eric joined Christi and Keith.
Continue readingDawn on Thursday, April 9, 2026
It was windy and the wind created big waves out in the ocean. In the early morning, Eric drove over to the beach to watch the big waves. It also rained on and off all day – sometimes it rained hard for a few minutes and stopped, sometimes there were a few big scattered drops now and then, sometimes just drizzle. The humidity made the air temperature hot, but the wind was cold, so it made the temperature fluctuate in a weird way.
A Yacht Tech employee came out this morning and worked on the water maker. He changed the oil and salinity sensor. Eric had been unable to change the sensor himself because of the odd wrench size. The technician had actually made his own specialty wrench by altering another wrench. Having the right tool for the job did the trick. This was another project that Eric hated to pay someone else to do, but he knew that he would risk hurting his back again if he tried to do it himself.
In the early afternoon, Christi and Keith headed down to Ft. Lauderdale to see Tiki Tour. They were still in Ft. Lauderdale, but had moved locations. This time, the drive was uneventful, but the Maps app routed us through the airport, which was weird. Christi and Keith picked up Fynn and the three of them went to the Museum of Discovery and Science in downtown Ft. Lauderdale.
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.
