Just when I thought things were going good, all of a sudden, all the electric in the boat goes out. I pulled the electrical plug from the shore out of the boat and discovered that it was all melted. Now, here it is Saturday, 4:15pm on a holiday weekend. First thing that went through my head, is I’m screwed. I hopped off the boat as fast as I could, went over to the dockmaster’s office, and told him well, remember you said if I didn’t have bad luck I wouldn’t have any luck? I told him what happened. Luckily, he had a spare power cord for me to borrow.
I went back to the boat, turned all the breakers off, went to plug it into the shore and the boat and turn the breakers back on, still nothing worked. Then I thought I was even more screwed. Luckily one of Wes’s friends, not a mechanic, but he still knows a lot, came over to give us a hand. And, speaking of Wes, I told you this happened at 4:15 pm, the marina closes are 4:30. So without his help, I really would have been screwed. Wes’s friend tried a couple of different things to get the electric to work again. Then he plugged the power cord for the shore into the other side of the post for the slip next to us. All of a sudden the power is working again. He said that the breaker on shore tripped. He checked out some more things, and then I discovered that the air conditioning system on the boat is obviously still not fixed. When you turn on the air you can see the amps on the control panel go all the way up- 50 amps is as high as the panel measures. At that point the breaker just pops. Now I’ve written before that we now have a portable air conditioner while the air was being fixed. We still have that, and that being said we can turn that on, tv, lights, ice makers- everything in the boat- and it only reads 10 amps. Turn on the boat’s ac, and it tops out at 50 amps which is as high as it goes. So there is something causing that to happen.
I’ve got a friend of mine, Clay, who is an electrician coming over tomorrow to look at things and then take me to Home Depot to exchange the portable air unit that sucks and get another one that is twice as big and he will help me install that as well. Now I did call the mechanic that supposedly fixed the air on the boat, and he’s going to come on Monday. He said he thinks it’s the compressor and that if it is, it will cost $3,000 to fix it. I find it hard to believe that that’s the case. But if it is, the boat won’t have air and we will use the portable air and that’s why I’m getting the much bigger one.
I’m still determined to do my 30 days. I might leave here and give myself two days to get back home, but I’m still trying for that 30 days.
Unbelievable ! I don't know how anyone could possibly have this much bad luck. It seems to me that the only people who are having any fun on this trip are the "mechanics" that are supposedly "fixing" your boat and collecting a kings ransom while doing it. I can't be certain, but something smells fishy to me.
ReplyDeleteJust be careful and get home safe.
Before shelling out 3K for a new compressor, be sure to have someone check the capacitor (dangerous) and also check that he cooling pump is still working on the unit.
ReplyDelete(Capacitors store up electricity so that when the A/C unit starts up it draws on the capacitor and doesn't overload the circuit.) Good luck !