It is a fact, when a homosapien also known as a human being has eaten, it will not take long before the homosapian has to deposit the none useable food into a toilet bowl. If you don't believe this take a plane anywhere in the world where food is provided and then observe. Before the stewardess comes around with the tray, the line for the lavatory is next to none-existing and the toilet bowl is shining. There is no paper lying around the floor and the smell is not the smell of strawberries but close.
The food trays are passed around, the water you are struggling to open because of the pressure is spilled on your lap along with bread crumbs and the wrinkle on your nose is showing caused by the tasteless food. The stewardess comes back a few times with water, taking some trash and finally she takes the food tray, that now looks like a minor war zone, back into the cart. And now it gets interesting, it is at this exact moment the real observation will start about the fact of human beings also know as homosapians.
First the look in people eyes gets wild and the unlucky ones sitting at a window seat can only watch the line for the lavatory getting longer and longer. The poor toilet is crying its eyes out, slowly but steady it is loosing it shine, the close to strawberries smell has gone and paper is starting to pile up on the floor and in the bin.
I have observed this many times during flights and this behaviour will continue as long as human beings are eating.
When a human being has released its used food, used the toilet paper and perhaps used the toilet sword also known as toilet brush, a human being just pushes the button and all the deposit will disappear into the unknown either it is a flight toilet or a regular toilet with water in. In a regular toilet the turd will even get a little roller coaster ride before the big trip into the great unknown.
On my 44 foot sailboat Solitude, it is a bit different. The great unknown is not that unknown. As a human being I have to deposit stuff into the toilet bowl as every other human being but usually it is in the morning when the coffee has gone through. On my marine toilet there is no button where you can flush the stuff into the unknown, I have to pump it into a holding tank using sea water. From the holding tank it gets pumped out into the sea via a macerator pump.
Coming from Grenada to Bonaire, two and a half day sail downwind along the Venezuela offshore islands things went wrong. Kenneth, my friend who was on the boat for three months, and I, had the genoa with the whiskerpole on to one side and the main sail out to the other side, a so called butterfly. We were going between 7 and 9 knots 30 hours and the autopilot was stirring perfectly. 2 in the morning the wind shifted all of a sudden creating a lot of mayhem with the sails and the autopilot broke. These things always happen at night, it would be too easy if it was day light and when I write night I mean it. There was no moon, no stars and lots of clouds making everything pitch black and we had to hand steer the rest of the night for one hour each. When it got light 6 in the morning I tried to fix the autopilot but realised it was the motor that pumps the hydraulic oil around that was broken. This all sounds very bad but the worse part was that the macerator pump for the holding tank also broke. I don't think it had anything to do with wind change it just broke and we couldn't pump out the content of the holding tank. The genoa sail also ripped a little bit. Like I wrote, things went wrong!
We picked up a mooring in Bonaire and next day went to Budget Marine, the shop you go the most when you have a boat, to find a new macerator pump but like most things I'm trying to get for the boat, the answer was: "No we don't have it but we can order it. It takes a week!"
At this moment we were talking about a major crisis. The holiest room, the most visited room and the most enjoyable room on the boat, the shitter, couldn't be used. Well, we could use it but the holding tank where everything from the toilet bowl was going, only had a certain capacity and that is 90 litres and it was half full already.
The only thing to do was to redirect the turds from the toilet bowl away from the holding tank and straight into the sea. After yet another visit to Budget Marine with the answer "No we don't have it but we can order it. It takes a week!", we located the needed things at a pluming shop, went back to the boat and started the work I had been fearing ever since I got the boat. I checked the holding tank to make sure it was only half full before I took the top pipe off. Started to unscrew the clamp and pulled the hose off and at this exact moment, after nearly 6000 nautical miles around the Caribbean, with no sense of timing, a small wave lifted the back of Solitude making the holding tank spill it's guts over my hands.
Desperate I looked at Kenneth then at my hands now covered in foul brownish water and back at Kenneth. I screamed, not like a child but more like a football hooligan whose team just lost the championship on a major mistake from the ref. Kenneth rushed, laughing like crazy, to the sink to get some water in a bucket. I was still screaming but stopped as the smell of shit came into my nose and then I almost vomited. The laughing from Kenneth had also been replaced with noises of vomiting.
I put the hose back on the holding tank and washed everything down. We had to cut the hose and put it onto the hose to the seacock that leads into the sea. I cut the hose and no brown shit water was pouring out but the smell was there and it was not the smell of roses or strawberries.
The next hose had to be cut and this time the hooligan came back to scream. This hose had also the nasty brown water in it. First laughing and then the sounds of vomiting came from Kenneth who got another bucket of water for my hands and now feet.
At the end, with the boat looking like a mess we got the right hoses connected and the turds directed straight into the sea from the toilet bowl and it worked very well for a few days. We sailed to Curaçao our final destination for this trip and moored the boat on my mooring.
Next morning the coffee had gone through and I was sitting in the holiest room on the boat, used the toilet paper and wanted to flush the toilet but something went wrong, the turd refused to leave for the sea and more and more water was filling up the bowl. Half angry and half laughing I told Kenneth the news. You can't really call him one happy camper when he realised the toilet was off limit and we had to fix it one more time.
After some head scratching, thinking and trying things I found out that the hoses were clogged up. Every time I pumped the toilet out a fine squirt came out of the side of one hose meaning that we had to change all the hoses. Now the boat was smelling really bad again of my morning ritual.
In Budget Marine in Bonaire I got them to order a new macerator pump to the shop in Curaçao and it had arrived. First little victory in days. We also bought new hoses, clamps and a wire to unclog the system.
With scuba equipment I dove down under Solitude with the wire and forced it into the seacock while Kenneth was pumping the toilet. It took some effort but all of a sudden there was a beautiful brown smoke ring being spat out of the hole with a force I have seen before, followed by bits and pieces of paper and brown stuff. In a quick manoeuvre I swam away from the released brown shark trying to attack me.
Next project was to change the hoses going from the toilet to holding tank, holding tank to pump and pump and out. Again I was screaming like a hooligan when brown water was pouring onto my feet and hands. Especially foul was the bottom hose on the holding tank and all I can say to that would be: Damn you gravity! The brown water was more like pudding in that end of the tank and I was making vomiting sounds again.
The bilge was cleaned with chlorine, chlorine and more chlorine along with the holiest room on the boat, the head. Eventually we were done with this adventure I could have lived without and now the pump and the sewer system is working perfectly.... touch wood!
The fact about human being, food and a visit to the toilet can continue on Solitude. Next time you visit a restroom, deposit used food, use the toilet paper and the toilet sword, waive bye bye and press the button to sent your turd into the great unknown, your should appreciate it just a tiny bit more how easy it is on land.
