Third Breakdown

On Thursday afternoon we pulled into Shubert Marine's fuel dock at West End - New Orleans. The trip through the Harvey Canal, Mississippi River, and Industrial Canal went well. Morele's first lock experience where you actually tie up to the lock wall. It's important to have your boat well fendered when laying up to those concrete lock walls. We followed the Lady KK, another boat traveling from Houston to Destin. Larry D the boat owner hired a skipper to help on the trip so they have been running hard.

We fueled up then headed into the French Quarter for a great meal at Irene's. When we got back to the boat we discovered that the generator had shut down. No power, no lights, no head, no air con, bunch of stuff in the freezer. I can't describe how p o'd I was. After a restless night I was up before dawn and with the help of a good samaritan boat neighbor rigged up 15 amp power to the boat which kept the fridge lights and head going.

Mechanic arrived about 9:00 and discovered blown fuse. This wasn't just an ordinary fuse this was a very exotic "slow blow" fuse. Of course the mechanic didn't have one in his truck and wasn't sure he could find this fuse without special order from the manufacturer. What a CROCK.
Mechanic takes off on a wild fuse chase. In the meantime I walk over to Shubert Marine's office and explain my problem. Dale picks up the phone and in 5 minutes locates the fuse at a supply house in Harahan about 20 miles away. John, owner of Shubert's drove me over to pick up the fuse. I can't say enough good stuff about the Shubert guys. Well, about noon the mechanic calls to say that he has located the fuse and is returning to install it. Because I didn't know what had caused the fuse to blow in the first place I decided to let the mechanic reinstall the fuse. He did and the generator started right up and has been running since. The mechanic's bill was $900. That's right $900 to change a fricken fuse.

Because of the delay we lost the weather window for the Mississippi Sound crossing. We decided to stay in New Orleans for the weekend. Mother's here we come. Acme too. Cafe du Monde for Sunday morning coffee and beignets. Not so bad after all.