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.

We are taking a car trip from San Diego, the southwest corner of the country, to Maine, the northeast corner of the country. We figured that since we’ve been around the world, we should probably go across our country. Of course, there is a twist to this road trip that makes it special and unique. We’ll announce the twist the day we leave and hopefully post daily updates of our travels throughout the trip.

We are hoping to set up some speaking engagements along the way. If anyone has any suggestions for a venue in the following cities, please let us know:

• April 29 “” St. Louis, MO
• May 3 “” Boston, MA or Rockport, ME (or anything in between)
• May 8 “” Chicago, IL
• May 11 “” Rapid City, SD

Here are some new pages that will always be available in the pages section on the right side of the site.

• Our Book: Information and link to buy the book.
• Speaking: A list upcoming speaking engagements.
• Useful Resources On Us: A list of articles, stories, and mentions of us.
• Original Plan: The original Kosmos plan to circumnavigate the world. See Our Plans page for current plans.

This is the 700th post on the Kosmos Travel Log! As most readers know, we do not post in real time, so this story is from last year. But wanted to continue sharing our road trip to Yosemite with our friend Cindi.

Sunday, September 27, 2009 – The three of us were up early yesterday to go to Yosemite. The two hour drive up through the Sierra Nevada Mountains was scenic and pretty. When we got to the Yosemite entrance, we were surprised to find out it was volunteer day, and there were a slew of people picking up trash, doing road maintenance, and other similar kinds of tasks in the park.

We were surprised at how long of a drive it was from the entrance to the main village in Yosemite Valley. It probably took at least a half hour. Yosemite National Park is about 760,000 acres, so, as long as the drive was, we still hadn’t driven through even a small fraction of the park. We were also surprised by the amount of traffic on the road.

Here is a view from a hilltop as we are about to ascend into the valley. Cindi and her dog, Sky, are in the photo. One of the things that makes Yosemite special is its unique gigantic rock formations, and in this photo you can see El Capitan to the left and Half Dome to the right. Most of the year there is a stunning waterfall coming over the rocks, too, but at the moment the falls are dry.

As we descended into the valley, we saw Continue reading →