When Kosmos was brand new, we were paranoid about developing a mold problem. After all, mold was a common issue on boats and we were traveling in the tropics, where the warm, moist air was a mold haven. But we made it all the way around the world without ever finding mold. (Well, there is one exception, when some sheets got wet and moldy after water got into a storage compartment located under a window).

Our first “real” experience with mold came in early 2010. In October of 2009, the weather turned especially cold and damp (by San Diego standards) and stayed that way through the spring. Around Thanksgiving, we started to notice occasional drops of water on the forward stateroom floor. Our immediate assumption was that the hatch was leaking. The next time we washed the boat we ran lots of water over the hatch, but it was water tight.

We paid more attention to where the water was coming from and noticed the drops were forming on the headliner. Oh no! Did we have a hull leak? Soon after, a storm blew in that brought heavy rain for a few days. We watched like a hawk, but there were no more drops of water during the rain as there were on days when there was no rain at all, so clearly it wasn’t a hull leak. We were baffled. If there was no leak, where were the drops of water coming from?

Eventually we realized that it was Continue reading →