Category Archives: Boat Technical

Specifics about the boat.

Arc de Triumph, Angelina’s, and Electricity

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We were catching the train back to Toulon in the early afternoon, so we didn’t have much time for sightseeing today. This morning we raced off to the Arc de Triumph, located in the center of the world’s largest traffic circle, Charles de Galle. The Parisians seem to have a weird fetish for putting important monuments in traffic circles. 12 streets radiate out from the Charles de Galle traffic circle, going to all sections of the city. There is an accident every 18 minutes in the circle, so some auto insurance companies have a clause that this circle isn’t covered. The Arc was commissioned in 1806 by Napoleon to commemorate his victories, but when he started losing battles, the work stopped. It was eventually finished in 1836.

We got off the subway and went over to the intersection. Yep, it is an arch, much the same as the ones we saw in Rome. And it’s tall.

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We wandered from street to street on the outside of the circle looking for the tunnel that goes under the street into the circle. We eventually found it on Champs-Elysees. Like the other arcs we have seen, it is Continue reading →

2008 Reflections and Happy 2009!

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Happy New Year! Wishing all of you and happy, healthy, safe and prosperous 2009.

It is time for a quick break from the usual travel log stories and do a summary of 2008. You can always check the Travel Summary to see the details of where we have been. Here is our map from the Travel Summary page showing our progress since April 2007:

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Last year, we did our year end summary list based on blog-time, meaning we didn’t talk about anything that hadn’t posted yet. This year we are doing the highlights in real-time, so some of these highlights are previews of blog stories yet to come. This is mostly due to the blog stories being several weeks behind real-time.

Since the 2007 highlights posting, Kosmos has made 33 stops in 18 countries. We have crossed two oceans the Indian and the Atlantic. We crossed the dreaded Gulf of Aden just after the pirate attacks had started up again after a 2 year lull. We crossed the Red Sea and went through the Suez Canal and then the Mediterranean Sea. We have done a lot of miles that is for sure!

Last year we were mostly in rural places experiencing nature, this year we spent most of our time in urban areas experiencing cultures and histories. We have been to some of the poorest and richest places in the world. We have been to Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian areas, and gotten a taste of Asian, Indian, Arab, Turkish, and European cultures. We have been consistently impressed with how kind and generous people are the world over. Even people who have almost nothing are willing to share the little they have. It is touching. We have had quite a few complete strangers invite us to their houses for home cooked meals, all of which are special highlights for us for the overall trip. We have had many other locals take us sightseeing and/or to experience the local culture first hand. We didn’t have many difficult times this year, but each time we did, we always had at least one, and usually more, locals willing to help us out, sometimes at a sacrifice to themselves. This year has opened our eyes to how wonderful human nature really can be and to how much fun it is to partake in other cultures.

Here are some of the more memorable things that stand out, as well as the statistics, from this year:

  • Average speed entire trip: 5.9 knots
  • Best ancient sites: Luxor and Giza, Egypt
  • Best hot chocolate: Valletta, Malta, though Angelina’s in Paris, France takes a close second
  • Best marina security: Marsa Alam, Egypt
  • Best night light show: Hong Kong, China
  • Best Overall Artistry: Bali, Indonesia
  • Best restored ancient housing: Ephesus, Turkey
  • Best yogurt: Greek style (even better with honey)
  • Biggest animal ever ridden: elephants in Phuket
  • Calmest anchorage: Rinca, Indonesia
  • Cleanest country: tie between Monaco and Singapore
  • Craziest locations of buildings: Meteora, Greece
  • Days on land/days at sea (whole journey): 433/169 = 28% of time underway
  • Favorite big city: Paris, France
  • Favorite dive spot: Komodo National Park, Indonesia
  • Favorite grocery store: Mark’s & Spencer’s, Gibraltar
  • Favorite guided tour: kayak hawng tour around Phuket, Thailand
  • Friendliest monkeys: Gibraltar
  • Hardest hike: Stromboli, Italy
  • Highest concentration of expensive cars: Monaco
  • Highest concentration of wealth in one building: The Louvre in Paris, with the Vatican, Vatican City taking second place
  • Least expensive fuel: Salalah, Oman
  • Longest passage: 20 days across Atlantic from Gran Canaria to Guadalupe
  • Meanest monkeys: Langkowi, Malaysia
  • Most awe inspiring tradition we witnessed: the Islamic annual fasting during the holy month of Ramadan while in Tunisia
  • Most bureaucracy: Andaman Islands, India
  • Most convenient check in: Pointe a Pitre, Guadalupe
  • Most daring rescue: saving a sailboat twice in Stromboli, Italy
  • Most different culture from ours: Oman
  • Most eager to feed you: Greece
  • Most effort expended by locals to help us out: Hulhumale, Maldives
  • Most expensive entry fees: Male, Maldives
  • Most expensive fuel: Male, Maldives
  • Most graffiti: Italy
  • Most interesting salvage of underwater treasures: Bordum, Turkey
  • Most mischievous activity: sneaking into the UN climate change conference, Bali Indonesia
  • Most surprising ham presentation: Canary Islands, Spain
  • Most unique housing: traditional Berber homes, Southern Tunisia
  • Most unique land animal in the wild: Komodo Dragons, Rinca, Indonesia
  • Most unique museums: Malaysia
  • Most unique tradition we experienced: annual sheep shearing and celebratory party in Crete, Greece
  • Most unique yacht club building façade: Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain
  • Most vintage busses: Malta
  • Most vintage cars: Andaman Islands, India
  • Newest mode of transportation we tried: Segway personal transportation vehicle
  • Nicest taxis: Mercedes are standard issue in Crete
  • Prettiest church exterior: Il Duormo, Milan, Italy, second place goes to the cathedral in Palermo, Italy.
  • Prettiest city: Monaco
  • Rolliest marina: One degree 15, Singapore, closely followed by Mallorca, Spain
  • Roughest passage: Bali to Singapore, but the Red Sea was no fun, either
  • Scariest Experience: Kosmos almost sinking in Stromboli, Italy
  • Scariest port entry: Singapore
  • Slowest check in: Andaman Islands, India
  • Worst drivers: Egypt
  • Worst radio abuser: The Pilipino Monkey Boy can be heard from Italy to Singapore
  • Strongest winds: 42 knots during a squall on Atlantic crossing
  • Total distance traveled 2008: 14,314 nautical miles (16,460 statute miles, 26,3337 kilometers)
  • Total distance traveled entire journey: 24,273 nautical miles (27,914 statute miles, 44,662 kilometers)
  • Total engine hours 2008: 2414
  • Total engine hours entire journey: 4090
  • Total generator hours 2008: 877
  • Total generator hours entire journey: 1644

We are looking forward to 2009. We hope you follow along on the Kosmos Travel Log. 🙂

Welcome to Monaco

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By 0300 this morning, the wind had picked up to 9 10 knots on our beam. The waves picked up, too, of course. It still was not a bad ride. Despite it being wavier, our speed increased, and we were flying along at 6.5 knots with only 1600 RPM. We had a current with us.

By 0800, we could clearly see Monaco in the distance. It is a cluster of tall and midrange buildings, which start along the shore and creep up the green mountain. But the major development only seems to go part way up the mountain — there is almost a clear line where it changes to a scattering of small buildings. That must be the northern border of France. The top of the mountain was covered by a cloud, so we couldn’t tell what was near the top.

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Off to the right, in France, it is mostly smaller buildings, both along the coast and creeping up the hill. To the left, also in France, the tall buildings creep down the coast, but above the shoreline there are a few smaller buildings and not much more.

We approached the Hercules Harbor entrance. We imagined how the call on the radio would go. “Do you Continue reading →

More Cleaning Up the Mess in Lipari

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Yesterday, we woke up to dark gray skies and heavy rain. The combination of the ugly day and the inability to open the doors and windows made for yet another depressing day. It was also really cold out, meaning we needed long pants, sweaters and jackets. Louis had asked us for a statement for his insurance, so Christi spent the majority of the day doing laundry and writing the blog post for the volcano/emergency rescue and gave the post to Louis as our official statement of events. That was one long story and took pretty much all day to write.

Eric spent the day cleaning the engine room and flushing it with fresh water. He cleaned out the manual bilge pump and the high water bilge pump. Both were clogged with pieces of a small cardboard box that had gotten wet and disintegrated into the bilge. We normally keep cardboard out of the engine room. This was a relatively small box of rubber gloves Eric uses for changing oil and fuel filters. It had just gone empty. So it was tucked between two oil buckets waiting to be thrown in the trash. Instead that small box clogged two bilge pumps and caused no end of trouble. The third bilge pump turned out to be clogged with sawdust. We have purposely flooded our bilge to clean out sawdust, but never quite got the water as high as it got this time. We view the saw dust removal as another silver lining. While we were terrified, it turned out the situation wasn’t dangerous once the portholes were shut. Now the bilge is more cleared out so hopefully the bilge pumps won’t get clogged should a genuine leak develop.

Eric also set up the emergency bilge pump in Continue reading →

Boats in Danger and Emergency Rescues – Part 3 of 3

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Continued from yesterday… Now that the coast guard was done, the police said Tai, Christi and Elizabeth could finally go to bed. The rest of Louis’s crew had checked into a hotel and already gone to bed, leaving Elizabeth as the group representative. It was 0300. The police told Tai and Christi the first ferry was at 0500. Elizabeth went to the hotel, but with only two hours until the ferry, it seemed pointless for Tai and Christi to check into a hotel. Christi and Tai laid down on a couple of concrete benches located near the bar. Tai passed out. Christi was freezing. Remember it was windy and cold, with light intermittent rain. She went to various corners of the outdoor bar in hopes of finding a spot sheltered by the wind. She finally settled on the front stoop of a nearby apartment, terrified they would open the door and freak out that a vagabond was lying in front of their door.

On board Louis’s boat, Senza Freni (which, incidentally literally translates to “without brakes”, and figuratively to “unstoppable”, yet another omen)”¦ Louis reached the anchorage at about 0315 and dropped anchor. This is where the story really becomes unbelievable. The anchorage had poor holding and 20 minutes after Louis anchored, his boat dragged and hit a rock. The rudder made a huge crunch and was destroyed. Louis said it was a sickening sound. He could only go forwards and backwards, he could not steer side to side at all. The boat was zigzagging backwards. At 0430, Louis spotted a boat in the distance and hailed it on the radio.

On board Kosmos”¦ it had been about 45 minutes since Eric had turned around. Eric hears someone on the radio calling a ship passing from Point Chiappe. Eric thought it sounded like Louis, but knew by now Louis would be anchored and sound asleep. Then Eric realized he was the ship being called. He got on the radio and said “Louis???”. Louis replied “Eric??? I was calling the ship passing me.” Eric replied “I am the ship passing you.” Louis had thought Eric was tied up in Scari. They decided the best plan of action was for Eric to tow Louis into Lipari. Louis prepared a line and Continue reading →