Head blockage

So I kind of gave away the theme of today’s post in the headline. We’ve known for a while that the head vent was clogged. This situation is a problem because when we flush the toilet all that shit needs to be able to displace air from the tank. And the vent is how that air escapes. When it can’t vent through the deck fitting the tank ends up “venting” brown shit water into the bilge. We learned this fascinating bit of physics this morning when I did a bilge check and saw (and smelled) the consequences. We had about three gallons of the stuff sloshing around down there. Oh my.

So while Ellen went paddle boarding with our friend Jenny I emptied the cabinet under the head sink, pulled off the access panel in the back, located and cut the end off the head vent hose. As soon as I did, the back-pressure in the tank released with an aromatic whooooof. Delightful.

You can see the disconnected head vent at the top. The other vent is for the shower holding tank. The guys at the bottom are shower discharge and (I think) AC discharge.

Fortunately the clog was in the very end of the vent at the hull fitting. I didn’t have to replace the vent hose or investigate anything closer to that nasty tank. The screens on the hull fitting were corroded and blocked so I first tried to clean them, then simply removed them I reinstalled the hose and buttoned everything back up. Mischief managed.

This is where I had to crawl in to get to the vent hose.

This is the hull fitting. The holes are where I removed the clogged screen from it. Someone needs to get in there with some rust remover…things are looking sloppy!

Initially I didn’t know how the bits of the hull fitting were attached so I taped it to the hull just in case it wanted to fall into the briny deep.

Ellen got back from her paddle and heroically sponged the bilge dry. We both cleaned and bleached the bilge in the engine room and in the tank room. Now we are back in business.

Yesterday we headed up the New Meadows River to anchor near the home of our friends Matt and Jenny. We kayaked to their house and they gave us a ride to Barn Stomp – a musical extravaganza over in Harpswell where our friend Jim was playing with his band. Food truck, oyster bar, tons of friendly happy people. It was a wonderful evening of excellent music and company. Thank you again Matt and Jenny!

Earlier this week I mounted my bench vise on a maple plank so I can use it aboard should the need arise. We are not traveling light. The vise belonged to my granduncle Phil and I know he would have gotten a kick out of the fact that it is now traveling with us on a boat.

Last week we stocked up on boxed milk. Ellen feels uncomfortable if we have anything less than an 18 month supply…(kidding, not really kidding).

And we are essentially moved out of the house. It felt particularly good to drop our snow shovels off at the swap shop at the Freeport Transfer Station. Won’t be needing those things again.

Ellen harvested the peaches from our trees, blanched, peeled, pitted, and froze them. So we have peach smoothies and hand pies in our future.

This picture represents just a fraction of the bounty we enjoyed this year.

In order to get to our anchorage up the New Meadows River we decided to pass through the Jaquish Gut. It’s a narrow passage lined with tourists ready to post any encounter with a rock. Pretty fun stuff.

Last week we went through the narrow passage between Sow and Pigs. Cyclops likes a tricky bit of maneuvering. You can say “I told you so” when all this close work ends in tears one day.

And let’s end this on a lovely note with this sunset photo.