Category Archives: Repair

Where we fixed something that failed.

Seeing Special Blend and The Clewiston Museum in Clewiston, Florida, USA

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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 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.

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Museum of Discovery and Science in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA — Part 1

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Dawn 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.

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Stormy Weather and Boat Work in North Palm Beach, Florida, USA

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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. 

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Snorkeling in Warderick Wells Cay and Moving to Sampson Cay, The Exuma Islands, The Bahamas — And Thoughts on Refrigerator/Freezers

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Friday, March 20, continued... In the afternoon, the kids from Tiki and Zimovia came over to play a game called Munchkin. After a while, they moved to Zimovia, which had a bigger table and better seating than Kosmos.

After they left, Eric, Christi and Clean Cup went snorkeling with another family in the anchorage called Sail La Vie. Christi and Eric had briefly met Sail La Vie one of the times we were in Big Major and they seemed like a nice family. We invited Clean Cup to join us since the Clean Cup kids were close in age to the Sail La Vie kids.

The motor had dried out and seemed to be working fine now, so Eric and Christi took their own dinghy — but warned the other two families that a motor failure was possible and to be prepared to rescue them. They left very early just in case there was an emergency. The motor seemed to work fine, which was a relief. Since they were so early, they waited on the sandbar in the middle of The Horseshoe for the other two families to arrive.

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Rocky Point to Blackpoint, Exuma Islands, The Bahamas

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Dawn on Saturday, February 28

It was still calm in the morning. We’d never put out the flopper stoppers, put on the window covers or got the dinghy down, so we had very little to do to get ready to go this morning. We pulled up anchor about 0630. It was a smooth passage to Blackpoint. We had a current with us and made amazing time, arriving at 1245.  

Our friends on Algonquin and a Nordhavn 50 called Grey Goose were in the anchorage. Keith and Eric met them onshore. Christi stayed aboard to attend an online meeting.

They went to Lorraine’s on the road for lunch. Lorraine’s directed them to go to High Tide (the Lorraine’s on the waterfront) instead. After 30-minutes, the server still hadn’t taken their drink orders yet, so they left and went next door to the Yacht Club, instead. Eric had a nice time talking Nordhavns, but Keith was bored. After lunch, they headed back to Kosmos. Eric and Keith did stop by Lorraine’s mom’s for bread on both the way in and the way out, but she wasn’t home either time.

We’ll take a moment to share our opinions: we think the three restaurants in Blackpoint are all very comparable in terms of price, menu selection and quality of food. That said, we’ve decided that the Yacht Club was the overall best restaurant. We thought Lorraine’s had the best food, in part because she cooked the food to order, but the service was the slowest of the three, in part because she cooked food to order. Deshamon’s and Lorraine’s were inconsistent with hours. Emerald Sunset had stable hours and good service, but it was also the most expensive and the food was mediocre. The Yacht Club was reliable, with consistent hours, food, service and middle of the road prices. The biggest downside of the Yacht Club was that cats lived on the premises and sometimes the cat smell was quite strong — and for Christi, that was a big negative.

Christi hadn’t been on dry land since Wednesday and was anxious to go to shore. She and Eric headed to shore as soon as her meeting ended. Here were some of the birds watching them as they approached the dock.

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