One Stinking Switch and One Stinking Mess

Date                            May 8, 2013

Day on the Cruise       44

From:                          Waterside Marina, Norfolk, VA                                                                    

To:                              Waterside Marina, Norfolk, VA    

Statute Miles               0.0

Time                           0.0 Hrs

Cumulative Miles       1,232.1 SM

On Board                   Chuck, Susan, Maggie, Trooper, Peanut

I felt much better today!

Today was a day about repairs. Ugly repairs! The thruster mechanic showed up at 9:00. Very knowledgeable and went right to work. Of course he didn't know the boat, so he set about tracing the wires and checking voltage, etc. on all the wires to and from the thruster. He had to open up consoles and hatches to find the wiring. The thruster itself is under the bed in the forward stateroom, so we had to move the mattress.

When he opened the floor hatch next to the lower station, the bilge had a good amount of "stinky" water, and that is putting it mildly. This area is right in front of the holding tank. We had noticed an odor, but knew that the holding tank was about full. Another problem! I was afraid that the holding tank was leaking, and the tank is located under the floor, practically inaccessible. Called back to Ocean Marine, and no one was available until Thursday. OK, get someone here then.

The thruster guy took 2 hours chasing wires and finally found a bad battery switch. It was corroded. Jiggling it resolved the problem momentarily but he could not guarantee the long term fix without changing out the switch. He had to go get a new switch. Later they called to say it would be Thursday before they got a switch.

Oh, and there is a Rendezvous we are supposed to be attending! Susan and I wound up staying on the boat until the mechanic left, then joined the group lunch. We had missed the morning sessions that were heavy on Canada where we aren't going to anyway.

After lunch, I decided I would bail out the stinky water which was a real stinking mess. Putting on rubber gloves, I removed buckets of water from the bilge. This was an really pleasant task, believe me, especially since I had been sick the day before. I then flushed the bilge with fresh water from our garden hose, and the odor was gone. I was almost gone also! Yeech!

Later in the afternoon, the odor returned, and an inspection revealed more stinky water. Houston, we have a problem! A stinking problem!

I made a decision and shut down the head. We had to go on a five minute walk to the marina bath house. I was making the walk about 4:30 when I ran into a marine repair man who was working on other boats here. Please Sir, do you work on heads and holding tanks? Yes I do, and I will be over to see you when I finish this other boat. Cha Ching!

He came. He looked. He said he saw the problem. The macerator pump which is used to pump the sewage overboard out in the ocean and which we have never used, was leaking at the seals. Makes sense. There is never any water run through the pump, so the seals dry out! Seals become hard and they crack and they leak. The pump is directly connected to the holding tank by a hose. What was in the holding tank was leaking from the pump.

In short order he removed the pump and capped the pipe coming out of the holding tank with zip lock bags held on with hose clamps. This would hold until he could put in a new pump next week. He also found that the vent was stopped up and it was making it increasingly hard to pump out the tank. He will install a new vent filter next week also.

But we weren't finished. We had to clean up stinky water from the bilge once more. Same song, second verse. Bail it out, flush out the bilge with a garden hose, bail again, clean and rinse, disinfect. Yeech! This time the marine tech did the work.

All this stinky stuff got done after 6:00. We missed our dinner date with friends and ate corned beef sandwiches on board.

At least the odor is gone.

Are we here to attend a Rendezvous or to get sick and deal with stinking messes???

Thanks for Reading.