Keith’s First Six Months

Today’s post is on Keith. He is almost 6 ½ months old now. He is doing great and thriving in every way. However, he isn’t an easy baby, so we haven’t had any time or energy for writing blog posts.

Developmentally, Keith has been ahead on most things. He was born with unusually strong neck muscles and never really needed much head support. Also, from day one he opened his eyes, made funny faces, and generally had a lot of personality. He started batting at toys at three weeks old. At three months, he started standing up (supported by mom or dad), discovered his feet, and his vision cleared up. Once he could see well, he became remarkably observant and attentive for a baby. He started sitting up all by himself at 4 1/2 months. Now he can stand up while holding onto inanimate objects for support. It won’t be long before he is pulling himself up. He seems to be starting to understand words we say to him now, too.

He is still expressive and full of personality. He constantly makes us Continue reading

September 2012 Update On Us

Sorry it has been so long since we posted an update. Life has been really busy. Keith takes just about every bit of Christi’s time and energy. Keith is thriving in every way: healthy and developmentally ahead in many areas. We’ll post more information and lots of photos of him soon, but for now, here is a photo taken last week.

Both The Unexpected Circumnavigation Parts 1 and 2 continue to sell well, which is
surprising to us since we have done virtually no marketing at all in almost a year now. The e-pub version of Part 2 is now (finally) available the iTunes store and on Barnes and Noble.com. A paper version is also listed on Amazon. (See the Buy Our Books page for a complete listing of where both books can be purchased). We’ll try to upload the book to Kindle soon. We’re hoping it won’t have the same bug that Part 1 has in the HTML (Part 1 looks all messed up on Kindle. Hand fixing the HTML so it looks okay has been on the to-do list for over 2 years now.) 

Christi has made no progress on the Recipe for Success: What Cruising Aboard My Own Yacht Will Cost Me workbook since Keith was born, but she will get it done as soon as Keith is less needy. Once the workbook is done, we can start on Part 3.

The new updated version of Voyaging Under Power by Denis Umstot will be out on November 1. Denis had asked us for some information that we believe he put into the book. We are very excited to be quoted in the “bible” of long range power boating!

Keith’s First Ocean Adventure: Leg 1 San Diego to Oceanside

We mentioned in our May 2012 update that we had taken Keith on three cruises around San Diego Bay by the time he was 8 weeks old. Shortly after his 2 month birthday (in May), we took him on a fourth bay cruise, and this time we stepped it up a notch by anchoring out overnight. Keith did just fine – in fact, that night he slept for 7 hours straight! (6 hours was/still is his norm, and believe us, that extra hour was a blessing.)

We decided Keith was ready for more adventurous cruising, so we planned a mini-vacation to Santa Catalina Island, about 80 miles northwest of San Diego. The last time we went to Catalina was in October 2006, when Kosmos was brand new.

We decided that instead of going to the main town of Avalon, we’d go to an anchorage called Catalina Harbor on the northwest side of the island. Despite the fact that it was probably the most sheltered cove on the island, it wasn’t all that popular of a boating destination. The nearby town of Two Harbors was tiny with few amenities. Niether of us had been to Cat Harbor before, but from the description, it sounded like it was the perfect “getaway” destination for us: quiet and peaceful.

Getting to Cat Harbor would take us 15 hours in head seas. We decided it would be best to break it up into two legs, with an overnight stop in Oceanside (about 40 miles north of San Diego Bay). The detour to Oceanside would add an extra couple hours of sea time to the trip, but we didn’t know how Keith would do in the open ocean and thought it was best to play it safe.

On Wednesday, June 6 at 0900, we untied the lines and headed to out. Sea conditions weren’t bad, but they weren’t good, either. Swells were coming from both the northwest and the southwest, hitting us on the port beam. Waves were 2 – 6 feet, gently shaped, and well spaced at about 10 seconds. There was a time when we had such a tolerance to the seas that we would have thought the conditions were fairly nice, but we’ve lost that tolerance and were both green the entire trip, though neither of us got sick. (Eric took seasickness medicine before we left; Christi did not as she is breastfeeding.) Keith slept for the majority of the 6 hour run.

The only exciting thing to report on the passage up was that near Oceanside we saw two military Hover Crafts doing exercises. We discovered that neither one of us wanted to change Keith’s diapers. The diaper changing station was located in the forward stateroom, a place neither of us wanted to be while fighting off seasickness. (Not being able to see the horizon often takes a person over the edge from nauseous to sick.) We also didn’t love walking up and down the stairs holding him while the boat was in motion. Keith pooped an hour out of Oceanside and we both agreed that he could wait for a fresh diaper until after we arrived. Fortunately, Keith didn’t complain.

We arrived in Oceanside around 1500 and were assigned a slip near the mouth of the harbor.

We’re kind of ashamed to admit this, but Continue reading

May 2012 Update

We have just lowered the price of the epub books from $7.95 to $6.95! Woo hoo!

Part 1 of The Unexpected Circumnavigation is available in e-pub at Lulu, iTunes, and Barnes and Noble.com. It is also available in paper format from Lulu and Amazon. Currently, Part 2 is available in both paper and e-book formats at Lulu. Part 2 should be available at the other retailers within 10 weeks. We’ll let you know when the other sites have the books listed.

If you’ve read either book and liked it, please write a review on any of the retail sites above, or on GoodReads.com. We’d appreciate it!

Our upcoming workbook, Recipe for Success: What Cruising Aboard My Own Boat Will Cost Me was about 95% done when Keith was born. We haven’t worked on it since, but we plan to finish it as soon as Keith is a little less needy.

Christi will start working on The Unexpected Circumnavigation Part 3: Oman to Gibraltar as soon as Recipe for Success is done. We estimate it will take her about 10 months to write it once she gets started.

In personal news,  Continue reading

Keith Week 2 and 3

We made another photo montage of Keith from Mar 24 to Apr 05. Like the last montage, it is mostly faces. He is an expressive little guy.

All the baby gear we got for Kosmos has been working out great. We use the glider chair for breast feeding, the diaper changing station in the forward stateroom, and during the night he sleeps in the little folding bassinet next to our bed in the mid-stateroom.

We took Keith out for his first cruise yesterday. It was just a quick bay trip to keep Kosmos exercised. We put Keith in the car seat in the pilot house for the duration of the trip. He seemed to really like the engine noise. While underway, he mostly slept. However, during docking he figured out he was not the center of attention and got upset.

Keith has been a good baby overall, doing all the usual things. Christi is recovering nicely. We think we have adjusted pretty well to taking care of Keith. Christi has commented that waking up a couple times for 30-45 minutes to breast feed and diaper change in the middle of the night is easier than having to wake up for a 4 hour watch during a passage!