For those of you paying attention – I misspoke about our destination today. I said we were going to Morgan City when it should have been Shell Morgan. Got my Shells and Morgans mixed up. We go to Morgan City tomorrow.

Anyway…Up this morning about 6:30 to a beautiful sunrise……AND  gunshot sounds. I forgot this is hunting country. Don’t know where they were but they were within earshot. Time to leave! Well after we have breakfast.  When we tried to start the engine –nothing. Michael got the battery cables out – nothing. Checked several other possibilities to find that it was the spade connector on the ground wire for the starter solenoid that had vibrated off the thermal. Easy fix once diagnosed. Off we went at about 8:40.

Back cruising with the tugs and barges. No admonishments today, we got the ones and twos correct. For you nautical minded folks who might not know this – this is how it works. If we want to overtake a tug/barge/ship on our port side we call the captain on the VHF and ask if we can pass on the “one”. They usually say “come on, see you on the one” in Cajun language. Or if you’re meeting a tug/barge/ship and you want to meet them on our starboard you do the same thing and ask if you can meet on the “two”.

Ok..our second lock transition today. I called (on the phone) the lockmaster of the Leland Bowman Lock to try to get a heads up about what to expect. The lady lockmaster says to me – you don’t have a VHF you can call me on when you get close? Needless to say I didn’t get any idea of what to expect like is it a drive through, do we tie up, if so starboard or port, is there a strong current – nothing! Soooo I prepared – I got my big balls down from their perch, put on my rubber gloves, put on my life vest and unleashed my pole. I was so prepared, I even yelled at the dogs to stay out of the way!!! We got to the lock and the nice Cajun lady says we can go through once the tug exits. I still don’t know what to expect. As we get closer she says come on through and I realize it is drive through lock. No need for big balls, rubber gloves, or my pole. But I’m prepared for the next time…..

Our home for the night is just beyond the Lock – Shell Morgan Marina. It’s actually a commercial facility but they have a wall and allow two or three pleasure craft to tie up on a first come first serve basis for $25 a night. Luckily we are the only non-commercial boat here. By the time we got settled it was about 2:30. We took the dogs for a walk and looked for the local grocery store. The grocery store had a for sale sign on the building as did the small commercial building across the street. The hardware store was closed and so was the marina office. Oh well, it is Sunday. We decided to have a late lunch aboard. We do have wonderful ring side seat to the ICW –  barges, shrimp boats (which we really haven’t seen traveling) air boats and even a helicopter landing on one of the local commercial boats, quite interesting! We switched between watching the play-off game (it is the Saints and we are in Louisiana) and the ICW boat parade.