Thursday, March 6 — Our friends on the Kadey Krogan had recommended that we do a river rafting tour down the Rio Grande, and had recommended a guide. We’d called him a few days ago and had made arrangements for him to pick us up today at 0900. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a good communicator. He said the price was $95 for a two-person raft. We were unclear on whether we were renting one raft or two rafts, and if only one raft, if there was a charge for a third person. We were also unclear on whether the cost included transportation to the river.
At 0900, we were greeted at the marina gate by two men; Michael was our driver and Louis our rafting guide. We left town via the same road that follows East Harbor that we’d taken yesterday, but instead of following the shoreline, he turned inland and took us up the mountain. The road was narrow and full of potholes, but it was scenic. Here is a view of the blue mountains.
As expected, the farther away from town we got, the less dense the homes along the road. While there were some dilapidated homes, the majority appeared to be well built and well cared for. There were quite a few large homes, as well.
Wednesday, March 5 — The weather forecast had changed for the worse, so we needed to either leave Jamaica sooner than planned or stay longer than planned. We opted for sooner, which meant we needed to get serious about boat projects and sightseeing.
After our morning routine of schoolwork and boat chores, Eric ran a bunch of tests to verify how the boat’s systems operate. After the voltage regulator problem he wanted to parallel in each of the battery banks to the house bank to make sure they each worked, which they did. He verified that the main engine shuts down without voltage from the house bank of batteries. He verified that if he shut the engine bank off, then shut off house bank, then the engine wouldn’t shut off. This confirmed his suspicion that the Seafire system was getting power from the engine bank in order to shut off the engine.
Ed had come by that morning and was being pushy about escorting us on a sightseeing trip. Knowing that we were running out of time, at 1500, we took him up on the offer. He said he was taking us to the Frenchman’s Cove and the Blue Lagoon. Ed walked us over to the gas station between the two main roads in town and we caught a taxi.
The taxi took the road that paralleled East Harbor. We headed southeast for about five miles. Shortly beyond East Harbor, the waterfront became all privately owned property. The buildings along the shore were mostly homes, with a few hotels, and was an interesting mix of old, new, small, large, low-end and high end.
This place is apparently a private home called Trident CastleThere were plenty of small homes, too. Continue reading →
Monday, March 3 — After being in the jungle at Shelter Bay marina for over a month, we were used to waking up to a cacophony of chirping birds. This morning, there were chirping birds, but they were overshadowed by crowing roosters and car traffic. The air smelled distinctly of smoke. Yup, we were back in a city.
We were sad to report that it never rained. At 0900, Eric was at the marina office to request that the water be turned on so we could rinse the boat. While rinsing the boat had certainly helped with the salt accumulation, in order to eliminate it, we needed to hand scrub. We did some scrubbing in easily accessible spots, but we’d have to go back to scrub the rest of the boat later. We also noted that the marina’s pipes have a significant leak — no wonder they only turn them water on upon request.
This morning, we found out what the warning that the locals were too nice meant. At several different points in time, we were greeted by locals offering assorted services. And when we said no to one service, they had another and another and another service that they offered. They each kept pushing until they found something we’d buy. One roped us into buying locally grown coffee, another a jerk spice mix and jerk sauce. Both promised to procure “the best” and return later with their respective products. And in all fairness, both products were indeed great, though we suspect the markup for the delivery was huge.
Sunday, March 2 — Tonight was a rare astronomical event — a seven planet alignment, with several of the plants visible to the naked eye. But sadly, the seas were too uncomfortable for us to even consider sitting outside to see it.
By midnight, we could see lights from southern Jamaica in the distance. By dawn, we were close enough to be in the shelter of the island and the waves became a little smaller. We could also smell smoke – not an unpleasant smoke, like a fire, but like smoking food.
Shortly after dawn, we rounded the western corner of the island. Our change in direction meant we went from head seas to beam seas. Eric’s seasickness instantly vanished. As we trekked north, we ran close to shore. From what we could see, Jamaica was mountainous and lush.
It only took a couple of hours to go from the southern side of the island to Port Antonio, located on the north-eastern side of the island. We turned into a bay named East Harbor, then immediately turned into a channel between the tip of the mainland peninsula and Navy Island that led into a bay called West Harbor.
Entering East Harbor, Port AntonioThe channel between East Harbor and West Harbor, Port AntonioContinue reading →
Tuesday, February 25, continued… After bypassing the battery protect device, and having Zeus set to 60% max load (~100 amps at cruising RPM), it was time to do some testing. First, Eric ensured switching to emergency power would work. He turned off the house bank via the BMS (simulating what had happened earlier), and then initiated emergency power by paralleling in another battery bank. It worked. Then Eric simulated being on a passage. He turned the main engine on, revved up to 1750 RPMs, and had all underway systems on. He watched the power readings like a hawk. This is where it got a bit weird. Every 400 seconds the Zeus restarted itself. Charging went to zero; but it had restart delay, so it took about 30 seconds to start charging again.
In general, we use about 60 amps underway, and this was actually enough charging for us to do the passage. However, watching the Zeus reset over and over made Eric nervous. He ran the engine for almost two hours, checking and watching. Eric had to made a decision: try to make it to Jamaica with a questionable alternator regulator, or re-check-in to Panama and try to troubleshoot more. Since the weather windows here were few and far between, he did not want to give up this window.
Now that we were certain that emergency power via paralleling another battery bank, we knew we could utilize the generator and the secondary alternator to charge the batteries. If there was a problem with the Zeus again, Eric would switch to emergency power, restart the LiFePo battery system, and run the generator to continue operating Kosmos via the LiFePo battery bank. He wanted to keep the secondary alternator in reserve and the other battery banks in reserve, as well. He also wired the ignition trigger voltage to a breaker in the pilot house, so if things started to go awry with Zeus, he could shut it down easily.
Keith and Christi helped with the testing/rewiring. Once Eric was done, Keith did archery with his friends. We had dinner in the marina restaurant.
On Wednesday, we didn’t need to wake up until 0500 to do the last minute things before going to sea since Kosmos was still mostly ready to go. Eric was feeling confident that that if there was another issue with the Zeus, he could turn it off via the switch that he’d wired up yesterday.
We untied at about 0600. This morning was much gloomier than yesterday, which felt ominous. We passed through the channel from the marina into the bay at low RPM’s, just as we had yesterday. When we were far enough into the bay that we felt like we were safe from any potential obstacles, Eric revved up the engine. All worked fine.
We exited Limon Bay via the east entrance. The big ships only use the west entrance, so we’d anticipated less traffic. Here were two ships passing in the west entrance.
