Boats always need work. On Spice, we have a list of fixes and upgrades we are working through, including solar power installs, reverse cycle air conditioner (heat pump), a washing machine and various odds and ends. I had hoped that we wouldn’t need to mess with the heads or the black water system for a while, but we were not so lucky. At the end of November, we found brown stinky liquid in our starrboard forward storage locker where the starbboard black water tank lives. We have a shitty leak. We are embarking on a rite of passage among cruisers, black water system repairs.

Just today, Sarah and I started the first part of a multi-part project. We tag teamed removal of the black water tank so we can troubleshoot and repair the leaky fittings. The procedure went as follows, first I jumped down through the hatch into the storage compartment with the tank. I started by mopping up the poo water with a hand sponge and a bucket. Sarah ran the bucket back into the boat and into the working head. Then I started disconnecting the various hose clamps, and tank level sensor. Now the fun part, time to disconnect the hoses that connect the tank to the head and the tank to the pump out. Yes, we did have the tank pumped out before this, but it doesn’t get rid of everything. Maybe the pros have some magic tricks to keep things clean but I don’t. So after a few curse words and lots of jiggling, the hose came off with a flourish. Poo gushed from the tank and flung from the hose in a brown rainbow as I fell back onto my ass. I got hit with a few drips on the knee, but it felt a lot more terrible. In the moment I felt I had been drenched.

Well anyway, enough of that. We got the tank out, flushed it with soap a few times and removed the leaky fittings. We found out that part of the leaky fitting was overtightened, causing the fitting on the tank to flare out. Another part of the fitting was totally loose. Now we need to figure out if the tank itself is messed up, or if we can simply tighten all joints of the fitting to fix the leak.

I had mentally prepared for this task. I knew it would be messy and I just assumed that this was my job. I actually thought it should just be one of us, no sense in both of us dealing with something as soul crushing as spending an hour crouched in a tight compartment, surrounded by gross. But Sarah doesn’t work like that. She jumped in, got dirty and shared the load. While I was messing with the fittings, she was in the hole doing the final clean up. It is nice to have a partner willing to jump in and do the dirty work, at least until we can make this kind of thing part of Lillie’s chores.

So part one is done, but we think we may take this opportunity to clean the lines, decalcify the head and maybe change some of the seals.