On just about every one of our boats, Gary has had to do some kind of work on the heads or “toilets” as you land lubbers call them. .  On our 1969 Aquahome , Gary installed a new toilet, transfer pump and holding tank.  My brother bravely offered to help him.  They completed the job in the springtime, hoping that what ever was left in the tank from previous years would still be slightly frozen and wouldn’t smell too much.  Unfortunately, they waited too long and the holding tank was too old.  It had been seeping a little each year and the board it rested on was saturated with….with….you know what.    They held their breath as best they could and got the smelly board out and tossed it into the dumpster at the marina.  They were then able to install a new board that smelled fresh and clean plus a new holding tank and head.  Such brave soldiers.  Now me and my kids had a place to go

Our next toilet project was on the Pearson.  I volunteered to help with that one, silly me.  Our son invited one of his friends down to spend the night.  Little did we know that the child had such waste issues.  We did have a Raratan head on that boat which is similar to a garbage disposal and it is reportedly able to take down a small cat.  Unfortunately, our little visitor must have eaten a dog because his little present was stuck half way thru the hose and wouldn’t come out.  After several attempts to clear the hose, Gary decided we were going to need to remove the hose from the head to the holding tank and replace it with a new one.

So, we both went down into the “tank” room.  Luckily you could at least crouch down there so we weren’t crawling around on our bellies.  I held the hose as Gary unscrewed the clamps.  “Keep it up!  Don’t let those ends droop!”  The hose was pretty old and pretty stiff so I didn’t have to worry to much about it drooping but we also couldn’t just hold each end of the hose like a garden hose and carry it out.  We had to carefully, and I mean carefully, get the hose out of the tank room.  We tried not to tip the hose to much to cause any of the disgusting stuff to drip on the carpet in the boat.  Once we got the hose out of the boat, we walked it down the dock and toss it into the dumpster at the marina.  All without getting any of it on ourselves.  Of course after two kids and countless times of picking up after someone barfed, I have mastered the art of breathing thru my mouth so I barely smelled the nasty odor coming from the hose.  But poor Gary, not so much LOL.  Well, we got a new hose installed and Pat’s friend has been banned for life from visiting the boat……any boat.

Side note: you definitely want to keep a good distance between you and the dumpsters at the marinas.  So far we have thrown two smelly head related items into the dumpsters.  I bet we are not the only people dumping disgusting, smelly stuff into them  .

Our next toilet project was on the Navigator.  And if you have been following this blog at all, I wrote all about that and the job Gary had fixing that one.  Now we are on to our 4th boat, and yes, it had a toilet problem.

The thing never really worked right from the beginning.  The first time out, I had to use the head and ended up getting my shorts all wet.  Luckily it wasn’t the yellow stuff, just the water from the tank.  Gary figured the band around the bowl connecting the toilet bowl to the pipe was loose so he tightened that up.  That worked for a while but didn’t really solve the problem.  So…..time to disassemble and fix the toilet.

A scraper and a scrubber, must of been some cling-ons still stuck some where.

All pretty and clean

Hopefully the neighbors aren’t to mad that Gary cleaned the head on the community dock.  Sorry guys

Let’s lay out all the parts in order

I love cleaning and fixing heads, can I fix yours?

Well, lets hope that is the last head the Captain will have to fix, although there is one in the house that needs replacement…..more on that to follow…..at a much later date.