Category Archives: Cruising Life

Describes an experience regarding the boating lifestyle of our travel.

Volcanoes, Boats in Danger, and Emergency Rescues – Part 1 of 3

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Preface: This blog story is of the scariest night of Christi and Eric’s lives. Tai leads a far more adventurous life than us, but it was still high on his list of scary events. This is one of those truth is stranger than fiction stories, but we swear every word of it is true. This is by far the longest story we have ever written on the blog. As we usually do for exceptionally long stories, we have broken it up into multiple parts. Normally, we like to keep each post 2 pages or less, and we have never had a post longer than 3 pages. Until now. This story is so long that we have broken it into three 4 1/2 page posts. If you didn’t read the last two posts, you probably should before reading this one since there is some useful background info in them. And we know, weather reports are not always accurate, and just because a bunch of other boats stay someplace does not make it safe. Also this is a good time to remind people the blog is not in real time. This event has happened in the past. See About this Blog.

So, yesterday we wake up to rocky seas. We were rolling like crazy, worse than being at sea. The water was a bit too shallow to deploy the paravanes. The rough seas were weird because it wasn’t windy and it looked like a pretty nice day. We were also bummed when we realized that the entire boat was covered in a fine black sand. We were afraid that it wouldn’t come off very easily, just as the sand from Tunisia hadn’t. Oh well, we’ll worry about it when we get to Rome.

We were desperate to get off the boat and get to dry land. As we were getting ready to go, Tai said “Hey, do you know what the name of the town here is? Scari! Oooo, scary! Ha! Ha! Ha!” As we were almost ready to walk out the door, a speed boat pulls up alongside us and Continue reading →

Welcome to Stromboli Island, Aeolian Islands, Sicily, Italy

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We found out that while we were in Palermo, we had missed a festival in Trapani. There were apparently fire eaters, which impressed Bill. Oh well.

Yesterday we did the usual get ready to go routine, including a trip to the grocery store. The day before, when we were in the first market in Palermo, Christi had said at least 5 times that we should stock up on fruit here, where there were zillion of produce vendors selling every type of produce imaginable. Most of it looked lovely. But we didn’t. So, we stood in a grocery store, staring at a small selection of nasty looking fruit. The apples and bananas looked edible, so we got some of those. Every grocery store we have been to outside of the US there is a person whose job it is to weigh the produce and print a little sticker with the total before you get in line to check out. This grocery store has a self use scale and sticker printer machine. The directions are, of course, in Italian. Tai and Christi couldn’t figure out how to use it. Mind you, Tai is involved in producing cutting edge software, and the scale baffled him. So, we gave up on the grocery store and drove around town in search of a street fruit vendor. This was a blessing in disguise. The street vendor’s fruit was beautiful and a fraction of the price of the shriveled up fruit in the grocery store.

Anyway, once we had taken out the trash, stocked up on food, stowed away the things that like to go flying at sea, and checked the weather one last time to make sure conditions still looked good, and we were ready to go. We said our goodbyes to Bill and Ellen and pulled out. At first, the sea conditions were rocky and rough, which was odd given that the wind speed was low. We figured the waves are leftovers from yesterday’s storm. At one point, Tai was standing outside the pilot house with the pilot house door open. Eric shut the pilot house door, telling Tai he didn’t want to chance a wave coming over the side and getting the pilot house wet. No more than three minutes later, a big wave came over the side and drenched Tai. Tai looked rather surprised and said “I guess I should have clued in when you shut the door”.

As the day wore on, the seas got Continue reading →

Food and Fellow Nordhavn Friends in Trapani

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We spent this morning doing chores. Eric washed the exterior. Much to his dismay, he found that the fine red Tunisian sand/clay/dust does not come off without serious scrubbing. The boat washing was a much bigger job than anticipated.

Christi decided to it was time to do a serious spring cleaning. We have a guest coming tomorrow, so she was feeling inspired. She deep cleaned all the carpets and upholstery on board.

When we finished the tasks at hand, we rode into the historic section of town for lunch. We went to a place that Lonely Plant said is frequented by a lot of mafia types. We ordered one fish carpaccio (raw fish) appetizer. We have ordered many a carpaccio before in our lives. It has always come out as very thin, ready to eat slices that look nothing like the fish it once was. But, apparently, they do it differently in Trapani. Out came a raw fish cut in thirds. Yes, the main skeleton in the center had been removed for us, but the head, skin, scales and smaller bones were all there. The waiter set the plate on the table and the fish stared at us, obviously angry about having to die for our culinary pleasure. We found out that it is much harder to get fish meat off the skin when the meat is not cooked (especially when using a butter knife), and also that scales have a magic ability to get into everything. We wrestled with the fish over the meat, and we are sad to say that the fish won. After several rounds over many long minutes, both of us gave up the fight, deciding that getting the meat away from the bones, skin and scales was just too darn hard.

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In America, Continue reading →

Boat Maintenance and Tunisian Foods

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It rained more throughout that night we woke the next morning (yesterday) to dark gray skies, intermittent light rain, and cool temperatures. It was almost cool enough to need a thin long sleeve shirt, but not quite. Shorts and tees are still comfortable, but barely. We are so happy about the change in the weather. After a year and a half of perpetual summer, we are ready for the cooler temperatures of autumn. We are most happy for those celebrating Ramadan. Life without water will be so much easier with it being relatively cool out.

Since our trip to the desert had been long and exhausting, yesterday was a quiet, relaxing day aboard Kosmos. Our big adventure was going to eat. We tried the Tex-Mex place. Turns out there were a few Mexican food items on the menu, but they hadn’t posted them outside for some reason. The rest of the menu was pretty standard western fare, with pasta, seafood, steaks. The Mexican items looked a bit scary. Fajitas and burritos were listed under the “cold appetizer” section. The main courses were totally non-descript, such as “Mexican Fiesta Platter”. Christi decided to stick to normal western fare. Eric, ever the optimist, ordered a burrito. Out came Continue reading →