Friday, November 9, 2012

Dropped The Hook !!


Our "hooks"
 
   Yay!!! We are out of the boatyard & have dropped the hook for the 1st time since last June. "Drop the hook" is a sailor term that means we are away from the dock & boatyard & dropped our anchor in the water. It's a great feeling! The easy rock of the boat at night....ahhhh...we have been sleeping like babies. We are anchored just behind Hidden Harbor Marina & actually rafted up with our friends Dan & Cheri.
Heading home from Hidden Harbor Marina to Malaika & Curieuse...rafted up together again!
   It's great because for a small fee we are still allowed to use the amenities at Hidden Harbor Marina  Thank You Greer & Aaron from Spybo Marine! (They are also the dock masters at the marina) We appreciate the Hidden Harbor hospitality so much!
  I am SOOO happy to be out of the boatyard. We accomplished a lot there but as I said in the last blog, it just sucks to be there. AND, it's really expensive. We had planned for a week but thanks to our friends help we got out of there sooner. One major project we started there was putting a macerator in. I know all of our friends & family are asking what the hell is a macerator? There is no polite way of explaining this. I'll caution you by starting with.... it has to do with the poo tank.
So, our toilets obviously don't flush down a drain into the ocean.  They empty into a 13 gallon tank.  As you can imagine, 13 gallons between two people fills up often. When the poo tank is full, we have to find a marina/fuel dock that provide a "pump out".  They have a machine that literally sucks out the poo. A macerator is a device that (here's the really gross part)...chops the poo up & pumps it out of the boat, which is legal to do once you're 3 miles out to sea.  We never have to worry about finding a pump out station now...we can dump when we need to.  What a stinky, dirty , gross me out project. I got my share of poo splashes when I hosed off all the pipes but Scott did all of the real dirty work with help from Dan & Aaron. It took 3 days total. The boat smelled awful.
Scott & Aaron about to be elbow deep in poo..they had to dismantle the exsisting plumbing to add the macerator
Dan helping with dismantling the old poo tank plumbing from the outside

No turning back now!

Scott running all the wire through the boat to our electical panel so the switch on the macertor will have power

Poo tank finished!!! Woo Hoo!!!

Thank You Scott!! I know nobody is more happy about finishing that project than you.
So glad that's over. .
Love,
Michelle, Scott & Jib

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

omg i'm in tears laughing about the poo tank! 13 gallons that sounds like a lot but its really not...if people only knew the beauty of the macerator...aka the shit chopper! Miss you guys see you soon! ~Lindsey & Matt

Anonymous said...

omg i'm in tears laughing about the poo tank! 13 gallons that sounds like a lot but its really not...if people only knew the beauty of the macerator...aka the shit chopper! Miss you guys see you soon! ~Lindsey & Matt

Anonymous said...

My dad always said we tried to put 5 pounds of Sh.. in a two pound can - Wow! If we had that macerator in the 60's. ;) Congratulations.

Julie O

ellibelli said...

so happy you survived sandy well, and that you are finally back in the water. we love our macerator, too--nothing better for life on the hook, or afloat! i do have a question for ya, tho--how do you handle jib's poo/potty issues when you are actually on the sea, and away from the ability to dinghy onto land? we are trying to teach our old dogs (11 and 12) this new trick, but so far not much luck....do tell, if you have suggestions.