Category Archives: Failure

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Moving to Between the Majors, Staniel Cay Area, Exuma Islands, The Bahamas

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On Tuesday, December 9, 2025, it was raining during sunrise. The view of the sun was completely obscured, but there were some pretty colors prior to the rain rolling in.

Much to our dismay, when we checked the forecast this morning, we saw that it had changed again — the wind would continue to come from the west all day today. Argh. We were frustrated with ourselves for not moving yesterday. When Eric and Keith went to bring in the flopper stopper, they saw this guy was making circles around it.

We immediately moved to the anchorage called Between the Majors on the northwest side of Big Major Cay. It was much more comfortable than the south side had been, but still rolly enough to deploy the port side flopper stopper. One of the issues with this anchorage that had made Eric reluctant to move yesterday was that it had a strong current that caused the boats to swing wildly from one direction to the other, increasing the chance of dragging. And the boats didn’t move together in unison. Some boats moved more with the wind direction and others with the current, so there was a bigger chance of collisions in this type of anchorage. We made sure that we anchored far away from the other boats and that the anchor was set well. This was our view of the anchorage looking northeast towards Fowl Cay.

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Start of the Passage from Norfolk to Marsh Harbor, Abacos, Bahamas – Cape Hatteras and Crossing the Gulf Stream

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Wednesday, November 12, 2025 — Christi woke up feeling like she was fighting a cold. It was warmer today than it was yesterday, but it was still too cold for our comfort. In the morning, we drove to Cova for lattes. Christi also stocked up on coffee since she knew finding good coffee in The Bahamas was not easy. Then Eric returned car while Christi and Keith did school. 

We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon getting things ready to go. Since it was a major passage, we had to make sure that everything was put away and securely packed in the cabinets and drawers. Eric rinsed the boat down and cleaned the exterior windows. Even though we’d run water over the lazarette and it seemed water tight, we decided to be extra cautious and put tape around the seals of the lazarette.

We untied at 1500. At first, the ride was not bad. We ran at 1625 RPM and averaged in the high 5s for speed. The sunset and twilight were… striped.

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Keith’s Perspective on Our Last Days in Maryland/Le point de vue de Keith sur nos derniers jours dans le Maryland

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On Saturday, we were supposed to go to DC with one of mom’s friends, but mom’s friend had to cancel. My parents wanted to go even without mom’s friend, but thankfully the museums were still closed because of the government shutdown. Thank you government shutdown! Instead, we went to brunch at a restaurant, then had Tiki Tour over for D&D. 

Samedi, on devait aller à  DC avec une des amies de maman, mais elle a dû annuler. Mes parents voulaient y aller quand même sans elle, Mais heureusement tous les musées étaient fermés parce que le gouverment était fermé. Merci fermeture du gouvernement! À la place, nous avons mangé un brunch à un restaurant, puis Tiki Tour est venu pour D&D. 

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Emergency Stop on Passage from Annapolis to Bermuda

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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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