Keith’s First Ocean Adventure: Enjoying Catalina, Then Back to San Diego

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This is part three of a three part series. Click on the links for part 1 and part 2. 

Saturday morning we headed to shore right after breakfast. Keith was again furious about the life jacket, but this time his screams weren’t as hysterical as before. We quickly made our way over to Isthmus Cove, where Richard and Pam were waiting for us at the dock in their 1991 Sea Ray Sundancer 420. We hopped onboard. Here is Eric approaching the boat while holding Keith in the carrier.

They were on their way to Continue reading →

Keith’s First Ocean Adventure: Leg 2 Oceanside to Catalina

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This is part two of a three part series. Read part 1 here. 

On Thursday, June 7, we took off bright and early from Oceanside. Conditions were almost the same as Wednesday, except the wave interval was 8 seconds instead of 10 and they were hitting us on the nose. Eric and Christi were both green almost as soon as we pulled out of the harbor. The good news, though, is that Catalina Island offered some shelter, so the closer we got, the better the sea conditions became.

Keith slept about half the time. While he was up, he seemed unaffected by the seas. We brought his changing pad upstairs, so diaper changing was no longer an issue. We saw the Hover Crafts again, and this time one came up very close to us so we got a good look at it. And a couple pods of dolphins came to visit.

We pulled into Catalina Harbor in the early afternoon and radioed the Harbor Patrol to get a mooring assignment. There were about a dozen boats in the mooring field and at least forty empty moorings. We were assigned a spot with no one around it so it would be easy for us to tie up. Amazingly, as we were motoring towards it, another boat tied to the mooring next to the one we were assigned to. We asked if we could move one over so we would still have plenty of space to maneuver. The Harbor Patrol said no problem.

The moorings at Catalina are a little different than any other mooring we’ve been on. Since it had been so many years since we’d been there, neither of us really remembered the right way to tie up. After some arguing and awkward fidgeting with the muddy lines (that left us both coated in mud), we finally got properly secured. “Ah,” we said to one another “It’s time to relax!”

Literally one minute later, the Harbor Patrol radioed us and let us know the slip we were on had just been reserved and we needed to move one over. Sigh.Now that we knew what we were doing, the second tie up was simple and completed in a few minutes.

That night we stayed onboard and enjoying the peacefulness of the anchorage. Here is a picture looking back at the entrance of Cat Harbor from Kosmos’ deck.

We started Friday off with Continue reading →

Keith’s First Six Months

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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

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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

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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 →