Exploding Toilets and Other Delays
20 January 2016 | Sarasota Mooring Field
Jill
We finally left Regatta Pointe Marina in Palmetto Florida. We were almost ready by the end of our month there. We had our pleasure boat user fee decal, and we’d applied for and been given our numbers for the Small Vessel Reporting Service, so we can check back in to the U.S. by phone. I’d sent the application and fee to the Bahamian Department of Agriculture for the Import Permit for Matey. We didn’t yet have that permit and I needed to call them. The Friday before we planned to take off Bud tried to do the annual cleaning of the toilet hoses with muriatic acid. He donned goggles and a mask and dumped some of the acid in the aft toilet. It fumed and bubbled and the toilet started to spew sewage. Bud ran outside and opened the pump out fitting on deck. A 2-foot geyser of sewage shot up. Bud grabbed the hose and flushed the deck and put water into the holding tank. I got back to the boat from walking Matey and cleaned up the toilet and aft head. The marina guy pumped out the tank as Bud poured still more water in it. But, when all was over we saw that the toilet was leaking. We used grape Crystal Lite to trace the leak and discovered that a ninety-degree elbow was cracked. It’s plastic so Bud could have repaired it with epoxy, but the weather forecast wasn’t great so we decided to order a new one and stay a few more days. Meanwhile, we cleaned out the holding tank vent and added a screen near the tank to make it easy to check and clean the vent in the future.
Again we were all ready with a new elbow and a new toilet seat (replacing the replacement that didn’t fit right). Friday was going to be bad, but Saturday would be nice. Sunday seemed iffy. So as Friday approached we decided to stay through Sunday, just in case that turned into a bad storm. Friday we had hard rain in the morning, but not much else. Sunday we had rain, thunder, and 52-knot winds. Sarasota, where we are now, and would have been if we’d moved Saturday, had tornadoes! And, after several phone calls to the Bahamas (via Skype) the fax of the Import Permit for Matey arrived just as we were ready to cast off today.
So we’ve finally moved. We’re at a mooring in Sarasota. We plan to leave as early as we can tomorrow to go about 60 miles to Burnt Store Marina in Charlotte Harbor. More on that tomorrow. As we left Regatta Pointe, two friends we’ve made, Jim and Margaret, cast us off and then came out to the end of the pier to take a photo. I added it to the Florida album.