Yes, we are way behind on posting, but slowly but surely we are catching up to real time”¦

Thursday, November 26 Over the last month, we have taken Kosmos out a couple of times to the ocean to dump the septic tank and give her some exercise. The first time was uneventful. The second time, a sailboat race was going on. As we headed out to sea, we found ourselves facing literally hundreds of sailboats on their way back in the entrance to the bay. We felt like we were in a living video game as we continually dodged the dozens upon dozens of boats that surrounded us. We were relived when we had completely passed them.

On weeks where we don’t take Kosmos out, Eric runs the various components (engine, wing engine, generator, bow thrusters, etc) while in the slip to keep all the components exercised.

Most days this month it has been Continue reading →

Just in case anyone didn’t figure it out, the last post, Reality TV, was an April Fool’s joke. Today’s post has us going backwards in time again to October 2009.

Sunday, October 25th“”This weekend was the Nordhavn Southwestern Rendezvous in Dana Point, CA. It started on Friday evening and went through this afternoon (Sunday).

Eric left work a couple hours early and we made the drive up to Dana Point. With no traffic, it only takes an hour to get there from where we live, but it took a little longer with Friday traffic. We arrived just as the cocktail hour was getting started. We were surprised at Continue reading →

Shortly after we completed our circumnavigation, we got a call from a Hollywood production company. The person calling was the assistant to the producer and an avid boater. He had followed our website and thought that our travel stories were fascinating, so he had talked his boss into considering us for a reality TV show. As the assistant explained to us, the new trend in reality TV is not to put people in crazy contrived situations, but to find people who are doing interesting things and simply follow them around. Apparently, the main reason for this trend is it keeps production costs incredibly low. The big question he had for us was: were we up for it? Of course, we said yes.

Knowing that there are a lot of hoops that have to be jumped through to get something like this going, particularly in the current recession, we didn’t let ourselves get too excited about it. We only told a handful of people.

Over the last couple of months, we have gone through a several sets of interviews (including some psychological testing), and contract negotiations. We were grilled about how prepared we were for emergency situations, physically, psychologically and emotionally. We recounted our scary stories about the sunken sailboat, the Java Sea passage, and Stromboli. After each meeting, we expected a call saying “thanks, but no thanks,” but instead got calls saying “Let’s schedule the next meeting.”

When the formalities were completed, it was time to work on a pilot episode. The pilot is Continue reading →

We are zooming backwards in time again with this post. We are going to make a concerted effort to get the blog stories caught up to real time before we leave for our road trip on April 24th. So we have a lot of writing to do in a short time! Check back often as there will be updates over the next month.

Sunday, October 5th Kosmos is docked in San Diego Bay. Yesterday, we decided to take her over to Mariner’s Cove anchorage in Mission Bay, the next bay north, and spend the night. It is about a 15 nautical mile trip. Before we left for our around the world journey, we went to this anchorage several times on our practice runs. It is one of our favorite spots in the local area because it is very sheltered, and thus calm and flat. It is off one of the more popular beaches in the area, so it is by no means an isolated paradise. But, you can also go to shore where there are a plethora of shops, restaurants, bars and even a roller coaster all within walking distance.

Since we haven’t taken her out in several weeks, it took quite a while to get Kosmos ready to go. Christi was in a great mood as she got the boat ready to go to sea. Eric was not in as good a mood, carrying work stress home with him, but Christi knew that once we dropped the anchor he would relax and forget about work. We both love anchoring out and have been sad that we haven’t had a chance to do so until now.

We pulled out of the marina at about 1300. The ride over was Continue reading →

The March/April 2010 edition of Ocean Navigator Magazine has an article in it about piracy that Christi wrote. Piracy questions are probably the most frequent questions we get, and the article answers many of those questions. It also reveals our gun secret. Up until now, we refused to say if we had guns or not. Find out in the article! The magazines are on the stands now.

Also, we will be speaking twice at the Anacortes Trawler Fest. On Friday, May 21 from 3:30 – 4:30 we will do a presentation on our circumnavigation where we discuss overcoming the things that hold most people back and give an overview of the world trip. On Saturday May 22 from 2:30 – 3:30 we will be doing a seminar on “Adjusting to Living Aboard” that talks about various aspects of what to expect when trasitioning from land to boat life, including a big discussion on costs to expect. The “Adjusting to Living Aboard” presentation will be done jointly with Denis and Mary Umstot, who have cruised 50,000 miles from Alaska to Europe and back. The Umstots also have a great new book out, called Voyaging to the Mediterranean Under Power. Both seminars are included in the regular ticket price to the show, and are not part of the PMU classes that cost extra money to attend. At the San Diego Trawler Fest we met several blog readers, which was fun for us. Hopefully, we’ll met many more at the Anacortes one.