Ah, the glamorous life! Exotic ports of call, fruity drinks by the
pool, exploding toilets. Seriously. Exploding toilets. Don’t ever envy our
lifestyle unless you get a perverse kick out of backed up plumbing in extremely
small spaces, because if you own a boat it’s inevitable that you’ll have to
deal with your head and a head is not quite like a toilet. A toilet kind of
implies that there are solid pipes laid out in a (somewhat) logical format,
lots of water to flush through those pipes, and a reasonable expectation that
what starts out in the bowl will end up deposited in a sewer or septic tank and
well away from your domicile. On a boat there are hoses that wiggle waggle
unseen and inaccessible throughout the dark recesses of the bilge, just enough
water to maybe flush something through this roller coaster, and a reasonable
expectation that at some point you’ll need to dissect the whole system to find
out why nothing is getting from Point A to Point B (and hopefully before it
starts to smell.) We’ve had the displeasure
of doing this several times over the past few years, and it just never gets
fun. Not even in hindsight. Because no matter how many times you fix a head, it
will crap out again and oftentimes in a spectacular manner.
As you may have guessed by now, one of our heads is “acting
up”, which is a more genteel way of saying, “the shitters gone south again, and
it’s taken the last of our dignity along with it.” Because the engine may let
you down, the generator may disappoint you, and sketchy electrical systems will
bum you out, but nothing smacks of betrayal more than your poop deck blowing
chunks at you. Editor’s Note: Just out of
curiosity, I did a query of how many times I’ve mentioned the head in this
blog. The answer was, “There are too many results to show here.” If MS Word has given up, imagine how we feel.
These things always start innocently enough. The pump handle
at the bowl starts to get sticky, then it gets stiff, then it gets downright
impossible to move. Generally, this is caused by worn duck bills, frayed
membranes, and/or “build up” in the pump unit and/or hoses. And yes, “build up” is exactly what you think
it is only in calcified form. But no matter what the problem, it’s guaranteed
to be a nasty, disgusting, and every other synonym for “shitty” job. Literally.
Our first foray into the world of hazardous head repair was in July 2015 in the
“Port That Must Not Be Named” in the purgatory known as Canada which, in
hindsight, was apropos given the circumstances of the place. The first lesson
we learned? Never—under any circumstances—run out of latex gloves. We buy them
in bulk now. Upon our return to Seattle, we got to work on the other head. This
was followed by various tweaks to both heads during the journey down the West
Coast. By the time we got to San Diego, we got smart and just started hiring it
out. And that’s exactly what we did earlier this year when we hauled out in La Cruz—we
hired a guy to remove, clean, and reinstall the pumps and flush out all the
hoses. We should have been good for a while, and yet here we are—a mere six
months later— and it’s dawning on us that he didn’t do such a bang-up job if he
did in fact do anything at all. Editor’s
Note: If I could, I’d go back to La
Cruz, track down this “plumber” and chuck our whole sanitation system directly
at his head for the trouble he has caused us these past few weeks. Lucky for
him they don’t allow hazardous materials on the airplane.
But I digress…
Our head system is a Henderson—which is a type of manual
pump. In theory, you close the lid, pump the handle, and it creates a massive
suction that seals the lid shut, pulls the contents from the bowl, shoves it
through the pump, forces it through a long length of hose, and then deposits it
into a holding tank. At the same time, it pulls seawater in through another
hose to refill the bowl. If one part of
the process breaks down, it brings the whole thing to a grinding halt.
The first step to troubleshooting a head is to disconnect
the hose from the pump—which in this case did not go well. To spare you from forming
a visual image in your mind—and because I have exhausted my thesaurus—I have
omitted the more graphic details of what transpired, but have left in the
audio…
*POP!*
*WHOOSH!!*
“Aaaaaahhhhh!!!!
“Oh God, no! Put it back, put it back, put it back!”
“It won’t go
back! Towels! Towels! Towels!”
“Get a bung,
get a bucket, get anything!”
“Plug it!
Plug it! Plug it!”
*Sputsputsputsputter*
*SILENCE*
“Holy shit.
What just happened?”
“I don’t
know. It just…I just…oh Lord that was awful.”
“Uh oh, don’t look down. Don’t look down!”
(Quietly) “It’s
on me, isn’t it?”
*DRY HEAVE
NOISE*
“I told you
not to look down. Don’t move, don’t move. Gah! I said don’t move!”
“Where’s the
Purell? I need Purell!”
“You’re
beyond that. You need bleach. Now take those off. Careful!! Put them in this
bag. Careful!”
“Otter! No!”
I wish I
could say that was the worst part of it, but the stench said otherwise.
At this
point, the Captain was able to remove the pump—with some difficulty I might
add, because it was obviously “the more screws, the merrier” day at the
manufacturer’s and “how much room should we put between the pump and the wall?
Half an inch? Don’t you think that’s a bit too generous?” day at the builder’s.
I then took the pump out onto the dock and proceeded to spend the next two
hours soaking, scrubbing, scraping, beating, cajoling, and every other manner
of “ing” in an effort to remove the “build up” from inside the pump. The
Captain, meanwhile, tried his best to clear out the hose which went up, down,
around, backwards, and forwards all within the confines of a one-foot by
two-foot cabinet and which absolutely refused to budge more than three inches
in any direction. Over the course of the next couple hours, he poured in baking
soda, vinegar, boiling water, and—finally—copious amounts of Drano, to loosen
the offal inside then utilized a plumber’s snake, a steel rod, a clothes
hanger, and a fish hook on a stick in an attempt to dislodge the “build up”
before finally giving up and hitting it with a hammer and blasting it with air
from a compressor. Now here’s the kicker…with each dislodging attempt, some
newly liquified “build up” would begrudgingly sludge its way up and out of the
hose like Hell’s own Play-Doh Fun Factory resulting in yet another round of the
audio transcribed above. Editor’s Note: If
the Captain survives this ordeal without a severe case of PTSD and a raging
case of hepatitis, it will be a blooming miracle. But finally, the sludge
abated, and water seemed to be going through. The newly-cleaned pump was put
back on, the hose reattached, and….it not only didn’t work, but it now leaked
like a sieve. And what water it did retain, backed up into the bowl and
proceeded to stink up the place even worse than when we started. It became
obvious that there was still “build up” in sections of the hose that we
couldn’t get to and we decided it would probably behoove us to just replace the
whole thing. We contacted Willy, our mechanic, because we knew he’d be able to
procure us some new hose. Two weeks
later*, he arrived with the hose and—to our pleasant surprise—a team of
workers ready to install it. Did it go well? No. It did not.
*Yes, it took over two weeks to procure the
right hose. Two weeks of three people sharing one head aka Exhibit A at Family
Court.
Now had they
been able to extract the existing hose from its confines, all would have been peachy.
But it would not budge. Best we can tell, there is approximately 10 feet of
hose that traverses from the pump in the bathroom to the y-valve underneath the
floorboards in the hallway--about four feet away. Three feet of this hose is stuffed
into the cabinet under the sink; two feet is visible at the y-valve. The extra five
feet is crammed lower intestine-style underneath the shower and is—short of
taking a jigsaw to the floor—not accessible. We also suspect it had been
zip-tied in several points along its journey, rendering it virtually immovable.
Simply put, removing and replacing the existing hose was not an option at this
time. It would have to be cleaned out.
With that, Jose
disconnected the hose from the pump while Jorge disconnected the other end from
the y-valve. They positioned two buckets at either end of the exposed hose and
readied a garden hose that they had attached to the dock spigot outside and
snaked through the boat into our cabin. They then filled the hose with muriatic
acid, waited a few minutes, turned the water on full force, and blasted it
through one end and out the other. The first go-round yielded sludge, small
rocks, full-grown mussels, and what may or may not have been a corncob. On the
second round, the hose pooped out another hose which I thought was weird until I
realized it had finally dislodged the “build up” that had been coating the
walls. At this point, water was running freely along the length of the hose and
we were going to call it good until someone uttered that fateful phrase, “we
should do it one more time…for good measure.”
At this
point, I’d like to go on the record as saying that neither the Captain nor
myself advocated this “good measure” idea. We were ecstatic that the hose was
finally clean and eager to get on to the next phase of the project aka fully
functioning head (and hopefully before the pervasive odor necessitated burning
the drapes.) But the guys were gung ho and, emboldened by their previous
success, proceeded to fill up the hose with muriatic acid, plug up both ends this time, shake it around a
bit, and before anyone could say “Basic Chemistry 101” the acid became gaseous,
quickly pressurized, and exploded out both ends sending the plugs flying and
acid spewing out all over the cabin and—horrifyingly—right into Jorge’s face. What
happened next was a blur of activity. The sink in the bathroom was too small
and we couldn’t get his head under the faucet, so we got him outside and under
the dock water spigot. Unfortunately, the dock water has a high salt content,
which only seemed to make things worse so while Willy took him up to the resort
to stick his head into the swimming pool, the Captain and I went back to the
boat to help Jose who was desperately hosing down the entire cabin before the
acid ate away the varnish, burned holes in the upholstery, and melted any man-made
fabrics. Half hour later and Jorge is on his way to the emergency room, Jose is
mopping up water, the Captain is triaging items that were blasted by acid, and
I’m trying to salvage the laundry which took a direct hit. The whole cabin
smells like chlorine, salt, and open sewer because on top of this small
disaster, we still have exposed plumbing. Once everything was cleaned up, we
reinstalled the pump, reattached the hose and….it didn’t work. This is when we discovered
that the pump itself had developed a small crack at the back and was no longer
operational. The silver lining to this shitcloud is that Jorge did not suffer
any serious or lasting injury. The doctor further rinsed his eyes with a
special solution, gave him some balm, and told him to take it easy for three
days. The only permanent damage done is that to his psyche. In the meantime, we
got to take it not so easy and wait about three
weeks* for a new head pump to show up.
*Yes, it took almost three weeks for the
pump to arrive. That’s more than a month of three people sharing one head aka
the arraignments are next week.
That’s the pump peeking out from behind the head. Technically,
there’s nothing wrong with its placement…until you install the toilet. I guess
it could be less accessible. It could be outside.
The offending hose runs from the head on the right, underneath
the floorboards, to the y-valve under the sole to the left of the door. Ten
fricking feet of hose. Because of course you want your poop to take the scenic
route.
The new hose. Someday it will go in. Or else we’ll just build
a new boat around it. That’s obviously what they did before.
This might
be a good time to talk about shipping…and world politics. I always used to
think that first world and third world monikers were indicative of a country’s
quality of life—GDP and indoor plumbing and all that. Come to find out, the
term “First World” refers to those countries that aligned with the US during
the Cold War while everyone who backed Russia were classified as “Second World”.
The “Third World” was simply all those countries that could really care less. But
now we have the new global marketplace and the criteria is more shipping-based…the
First World is everyone with Amazon Prime, the Second World can generally
expect delivery within a week, and the Third World could really care less if
you get your package or not, so long as someone pays the duty on it.
The Captain
and I had some bikes shipped to El Salvador a few months ago. We would have
bought local, but the average Salvadoran is a good foot shorter than the
Captain and we couldn’t find a frame that didn’t make him look like a chimp on
a low rider trike. We found a great deal on some bikes in Germany, made the
purchase, and then diligently tracked our shipment every thirty minutes (aka
the online equivalent of repeatedly pressing the elevator button in the hopes
that it will arrive faster.) The bikes were picked up by DHL at the vendor’s
facility in Germany, loaded onto a flight in Frankfurt, changed planes in
Miami, arrived in El Salvador the next day, admitted into customs, generated
some paperwork, and then promptly got lost in the system.
Why? Because
even though DHL advertises door-to-door delivery, what they actually do is
bring the package into the country, hand it off to the locals, and then hope
for the best. In this instance, DHL delivered our bikes to the Salvadoran
Postal Service who promptly assigned them new tracking numbers, which sounds
efficient but only if all the other parties are brought into the loop. Which
they weren’t. DHL didn’t have the new tracking numbers. We certainly didn’t.
And the Salvadorans couldn’t find the packages without them. Luckily, some friends
here know one of the local postmasters who after considerable effort procured
the tracking numbers and discovered that the bikes were being held in customs (Aduana)
at the main post office in San Salvador, pending payment of duties. And thus
began the battle for the bikes. Because you can’t just go into customs, present
your paperwork, pay your duty, and assume you will take possession of your
package. Oh no. Get ready. Because here are the top five reasons why you won’t get
your package today…
It’s not here. The Aduana agent
proclaimed this while eyeballing a room not exactly crammed with packages when,
in fact, we could clearly see a large box against a back wall in the office
that says, “Bicycles” and “Product of Germany” on it. To get around this, we
asked him to check the tracking numbers on his computer. He does, he frowns, he
looks around, he spots the box, he takes a wand over to it, scans the
paperwork, returns to his computer and says, “Hey! There it is!”
The name on the package does not 100% match
the name on your ID. “Sorry, *looks at Passport* Neil Aaron Armand, but the
label clearly states this is for someone named Neil A. Armand.” I can’t release
the package to you. To get around this, we had to fill out a form verifying
that he was the same person, go to one of the makeshift kiosks behind the post
office to make photocopies of the form, and submit two copies along with a 150%-sized
copy of the Captain’s passport.
You don’t have a copy of the packing slip
currently on the box. We tried to explain that this was an internet order
from the other side of the world and that it just wasn’t feasible to have the
green portion of a three-part carbon copy manifest. To get around this, we had
to go to one of the makeshift kiosks to access a computer and print out a page
from the bike manufacturer’s website showing their name and address at the top
and our name and address at the bottom and submit two copies along with a
150%-sized copy of the Captain’s passport.
You do not have the invoice currently
attached to the package. Yes, you read that right. We had a bill of sale
from the company in Germany showing the order number, product description,
color, quantity, cost, and price paid but could not verify that it matched the
invoice attached to the box because they would not open the shipping pouch to
look at it. Why? Because we couldn’t provide an invoice to prove the package was
ours, even though we had just established that the packing slip was valid. This
is when we learned that in Aduana-land, a bill of sale is not an invoice,
especially when you don’t know what the invoice looks like. To get around this,
we had to fill out a form verifying that we were certain that our bill of sale
would match the invoice, go to one of the makeshift kiosks behind the post
office to make photocopies of the form and submit two copies along with a 150%-sized
copy of the Captain’s passport.
The value of the shipment is over $500 and
therefore requires the services of a customs broker. This is where things
get hazy because common sense would say that the value should be of the item
itself--and the bikes were valued at $425—but the customs agent insisted that
the $60 we paid in shipping was part of the value, as was the Salvadoran sales
tax he was going to levy on it, putting us at a grand total of $517. Luckily,
there is a thriving community of customs brokers operating out of makeshift kiosks
behind the post office. Unfortunately, we’d spent so much time getting to this
point that the Aduana office was closing for the day.
Day two did
not go much better. The Captain returned to Aduana with our friend, Ernesto,
acting as interpreter to ascertain why we needed to hire a broker when the
value was technically under $500, but that we would be happy to pay the duty on
the sales tax if it would mean getting our package. The agent seemed receptive
until the supervisor got involved. Needless to say, a broker was engaged. And
needless to say, the broker was made to jump through the exact same hoops as we
were in regard to recipient names, packing slips, invoices, and paperwork.
Although the broker did get one step closer. He almost got to pay the duty. Of course,
by the time he had the payment form in his hand to take to the bank, everything
was closed. End of the day…still no bikes. Just frustration.
See what I
mean about a battle? Of course, when dealing with Salvadoran Aduana, it’s more
of a war of attrition. Because it would take Ernesto and the broker THREE MORE
TRIPS to customs to finally get our bikes (at this point, we had gone to Miami to
extend our visas where, ironically, we found out upon our return that could
bring in a LOT more stuff on our person through the airport—including a welder!
—without anyone in customs even batting an eye.) We were told after the fact
that had each bike been packaged separately—bringing the value of each way below
the $500 threshold—that we wouldn’t have had any problems. But I’m not so sure.
Because we had some minor welder parts shipped to us under warranty—value was
shipping only—and we still spent over three hours shuffling back and forth
between DHL, the various service kiosks, and the customs warehouse only to
reach the “inspecting the merchandise” stage before finally giving up and walking
away. Why? Because when the agent told us he would retape the box, complete the
paperwork, and get us on our way “as soon as he returned from his lunch break”
we basically told him he could stick that package where the sun don’t shine. And
by we, I mean Ernesto. Because why else would you bring an interpreter to
customs if not to convey what you’re really thinking?
So back to
our head. We had the new pumps shipped via Aeroposte which is truly
door-to-door. It costs a lot more, but the price includes shipping, all import
duties, and the guy they hire to fight with Aduana for six days. But it was
well worth it, because at least we didn’t have to spend our entire summer sitting in customs. But I
guess it wasn’t all bad…at least their toilet worked.
