Category Archives: Cruising Life

Describes an experience regarding the boating lifestyle of our travel.

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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Back to Old Port Cove Marina, Dinner at Belle’s, and Rocket Launches

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Dawn on Wednesday, April 1, 2026

This morning, it was very rolly in the anchorage. During manatee season, boats were required to go slow here in Lake Worth. As of today, manatee season was officially over and the boats were allowed to go fast again, making the wakes bigger and the anchorage uncomfortable. We were having a hard getting anything done because of all the motion.

Given how unhappy we were about the motion, we were thrilled when Yacht Tech called and said they could get us in early — they had availability today at a slip in Old Port Cove Marina. Anxious to get to a more stable spot ASAP, we immediately stopped school, stowed the dinghy and brought in the flopper stopper. We had several lines attaching the dinghy to Kosmos, and we noticed that one of the lines had broken. The water dripping from the flopper stopper as we pulled it up was black – yes, it was an out tide and that was water that had come from deeper in the lake. In preparation for tying up, we got out the fenders and dock lines. We pulled up anchor at 1045.

The ride through the narrow ICW channel was disconcerting, but all went fine. Here were a few photos from the trek north. The narrow channel between the marinas/boat yards and Peanut Island. This photo did not do justice to just how narrow the channel was.

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Running Errands in the West Palm Beach Area, Florida, USA

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Dawn on Tuesday, March 31

By yesterday morning, the wind had died down quite a bit and we had light rain. But the anchorage was more uncomfortable than it had been the last couple of days. There was more boat traffic, and the wakes made the anchorage rolly. Also, the wind waves were causing a somewhat lurchy motion. Eric put out the port flopper stopper.

After Keith finished his school work, we took the dinghy to shore. There wasn’t much water in the bottom of the dinghy, so hadn’t rained all that much overnight, either. We hopped in the car and headed to the closest mall. It was very upscale and fancy. After being in The Bahamas for so long, where access to goods was limited, it was a bit overwhelming to be in a mall, with unlimited access to almost any good one may want to buy.

We bought Christi a new phone case — hers has been held together with blue tape for more than a month. We got a new keyboard for Keith — his had broken about a month ago. Eric found a work around, so Keith has been managing, but it was making school and talking to friends tough for him. Eric got his reading glasses fixed — one of the nose pieces had broken a couple of weeks ago and it actually hurt him to wear his reading/computer glasses.

After taking care of our errands, we went to El Mezcal for a late lunch. We were sad to find it was closed on Mondays. Having our heart set on Mexican, we found a place with good reviews called Torero’s and went there. It was in a strip mall.

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