Continued… When Christi and Keith returned to the dinghy dock, they saw that Kosmopolitan wasn’t there. They walked out to the southwest edge of the marina to watch for Eric’s arrival. Looking north, we could see the marina, the little shallow bay next to it, and the sea wall that separates them. The marina was clearly a dredged portion of the little bay.
Looking south, we could see that the beach on between Xuma’s and this point was lined with chairs.
Friday, March 21 — The Nordhavn 68 in this photo was named Stella Luna, and we got this great shot of her under the brightly glowing, half-full luna at dawn.
Like yesterday, the wind was low and the bay was calm, so after we finished school and chores, we headed out to go snorkeling with some other families. Our rendezvous spot was at the southwestern tip of Stocking island.
As we had briefly mentioned back in December, we (relatively) recently upgraded our dinghy. We’d had a Gig Harbor hard shell sailing/rowing dinghy with a Torqueedo 503 electric motor with 1.5 horsepower. We also had 50-watt solar panels to charge the motor when we had it out, which were made by Torqueedo. We were very happy with those solar panels.
Continue readingNote: Christi normally writes the blog posts, however, since this is a boat technical post, Eric has authored this one.
Tuesday, February 25: We rolled out of bed at 0400 and did all the last minute things we always do before going to sea. Our first inkling that something could be wrong came at about 0530, when I turned on the main engine to warm it up. Before we get into the details, here is some important background information:
While underway, electricity to charge the batteries for Kosmos is made from an alternator on the main engine. It is an important system, and having electricity from the main engine allows us to run all the boats systems without running the generator. While underway, the boat uses quite a bit of electricity for air circulation, navigation/radar, and all the usual loads (refrigeration, freezer, lights, Internet etc.).
The main engine alternator is externally regulated by a product from ARCO called Zeus. External regulation is a general practice for interfacing with Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePo) batteries, which was part of the upgrades made to Kosmos after we got back from the Sea of Cortez. Zeus has an app and can connect via Bluetooth for configuration and monitoring. Mainly, it can reduce the load on the alternator ensuring it does not overheat. The Zeus box has several sensor wires for temperature, RPM, voltage, ignition, regulator control, etc.
Continue readingWednesday, December 25 — The worsening of sea conditions that happened late on Tuesday night didn’t last long. During the wee hours of the morning, the wind calmed down, the lightning vanished, and the sea conditions began to slowly improve. By morning, the ride was calm and pleasant. The swells were probably about three feet with long intervals, coming from two directions, and almost no wind chop. It was totally overcast with ominous grey clouds.
In the morning, another pod of dolphins came to play at the bow. This group stayed for quite a while and did a performance for us, frequently jumping out of the water. We saw them do three spins, and we caught the third one on video!
Eric also saw a turtle in the morning. We forgot to mention that Eric had also seen a turtle a few days ago, too.
Continue readingWednesday, December 11, 2024 — Before we get into the day, we want to give a couple of quick backgrounds. Our beloved Gig Harbor hard sailing/rowing dinghy, Kosmopolitan, which circumnavigated the globe with us, was seriously damaged while we were in Baja. We managed to keep her floating with duct tape until we got back to San Diego. Upon return to San Diego, we replaced her with an OC Tender, which is also named Kosmopolitan. Here’s a photo of our new dinghy taken in San Diego.
When we were in the hurricane in Baja, the boat next to us in the storm was named Lusty. The people aboard Lusty were named Karen and Max, and they may be the funnest people we’ve ever met. We had an incredible time in the Bahia de Los Angeles area, largely because Max and Karen arranged a party every night — and Karen would cater it with incredible food. Christi was amazed at what Karen could make aboard a tiny boat kitchen.
On to our day… In the morning, Eric washed the boat, then walked over to the Port Captain’s office to check in. Meanwhile, Christi and Keith worked on school and did some cleaning inside.
As we were leaving to go to lunch, we bumped into our neighbors and noticed they had a dinghy identical to the original Kosmopolitan. Then we noticed the name on the back was Sprezzatura, and asked if they had gotten it from our friend on the Nordhavn 40 named Sprezzatura. They confirmed it was the same dinghy, though it had changed hands a couple of times between our friend and our new neighbors. What a small world!
Our destination for lunch was a restaurant called El Ring, which was around the corner from Ballena Blanca. We noticed that the restaurant on the corner was named Lusty on Land. We knew it had to be Max and Karen’s. Especially when we saw they didn’t open until 1600 and had music every night.
Continue reading