When we woke up on Tuesday, March 25, we saw that the storm had not hit yet. It was an unusual dawn, with the colors darker than normal.
Eric checked the forecast; the storm was still on its way, and now it was supposed to be even bigger than what had been predicted yesterday. The barge was still there, too. On the radio net, someone said the barge was waiting for a tow boat to come rescue them.
It was the hottest and most humid day that we’ve had in the Bahamas. It was so hot that we broke down and turned on the AC – it was the first time that we’d run it since arriving in the Bahamas.
Eric was still hesitant to turn the Zeus back on. He decided to only turn the power on, and didn’t run it. The first thing it did was demand a software update in order to operate.
On Monday, March 24, the crescent moon was still shining brightly despite the cloud cover as dawn started.
Dawn was spectacular
This morning, Eric called ARCO again and managed to get through to a customer service person. This time, the customer service person did send the schematics over to Eric and told Eric to check the regulator setting to make sure that it was set to Viktron. Eric spent the day mulling over whether it was wise to turn the Zeus box back on.
On Friday, March 14, starting at 0100 and lasting until 0500, there had been a full moon eclipse. Had we stayed up and the clouds cooperated, we probably could have seen it from here. But chose not to. When we awoke, the eclipse was fully over and the moon was shining like a spotlight.
Wednesday, March 12, 2025 — We were up again early to get the boat ready to go to sea. A storm was coming in the next few days. As much as we liked this place, we’d had to make a decision between staying here longer than planned or leaving sooner than planned. We opted for sooner. We picked an anchorage ten hours away so we could do a day run.
We quickly got the dinghy up and all the loose things stowed. As soon as dawn broke (shortly before 0700), Eric turned on the engine. The stabilizers didn’t turn on. Eric troubleshooted and determined that the servo controller (main computer) was getting power.
Our new friends also decided to move on for the storm. Here they were leaving the anchorage as the sun rose.
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.
