When you tell someone that you’re sailing around the world, the picture that pops up in their heads is invariably a lot more glamorous than the down and dirty, day-in-and-day-out reality proves to be. And by down and dirty I mean that sooner or later you’re gonna be crunched up like a contortionist, playing hide and go seek in the head with your shit tank.
Ours is a wee little thing and brand new, to boot. We put in all new, premium, your-shit-doesn’t-stink kind of hoses. Bought ourselves a cunning, shiny little clamshell vent to top the whole thing off and pretty much thought that our shit was handled. That would be mistake #1.
Mistake #2 was literally a big old clump of Number 2 that lodged itself firmly in the throat of our system’s vent after we’d inadvertently overfilled our poor little excuse for a shit tank. And everything went completely downhill from there. It’s all kind of blurry now, but there was something about a high pressure crap facial and then chiseling for-fucking-ever on the overboard discharge elbow, all the while liquefied shit is running it’s way down my arm, straight into the armpit, and well…I’m still trying to repress the rest.
Somewhere around the time I was shoved up under the sink, struggling to wrestle the hose off our overboard discharge valve, I’d gone from “this sucks ass” to “seriously? Am I really spending all afternoon swimming in our poo water?” to finally, “We are never crapping on this boat again. The head is secured. That is all.”
I was more rational about the whole thing after I’d taken a long hot shower and while I was standing there under the water, trying to scald the little shit microbes off my skin, I realized it basically comes down to two options: liquid or solid.
Liquid is traditional–you’re storing all your waste in a tank and then pumping it out with a shoreside sucker-outer (like an RV) or over the side if you happen to be 3 miles offshore. Solid is surprisingly controversial. Composting toilets are relatively new to the cruising scene and if you go online you’ll find the forums can get pretty worked up about what you’re going to take a poop in. Each option has it’s pros and cons. One of the biggest drawbacks of a composting setup is that they tend to be spendy. Nobody really wants to drop a couple thousand clams on a crapper. That’s a pretty hefty bite to take out of the cruising kitty.
In the end, we decided to get one of those newfangled composting toilets. C-Head has some really affordable units for $500. Ours will be ready in three weeks. Wonder if we can hold it till then…
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Very, very funny story, Tamiko (picturesque, too). When I lived aboard my old fishing clunker, there was an old fashioned ‘flush it into the ocean’ affair, which actually worked quite well! The problem however, was that there was a very small, rusty & insecure, one-way-valve which decided that toilet war was going out to sea, & sea water was not coming into the toilet (& thus the rest of the boat, causing boat to rapidly sink). I had a near-death experience once when the one-way-valve became a 2-way-valve. As far as I can recall, I never used that toilet again. I’ve read accounts of “breathatarians”…apparently these people never eat & never go to the bathroom. Sounds admirable. I gave it a try once, but gave up when the clock struck 5 pm. Time for a Twinkie. Your story illustrates but one of the many reasons I choose to live up in the hills. Hey, gotta’ go now (er…I mean, talk later…)
I only have one word…”BUCKET”!!! It’s a government conspiracy I tell you! If you had to measure “dung” while sailing even coastal (you would use the bathrooms if in a harbor) it would be a percentage of 1% compared to the run-off form the shore. I mean animal feces, agricultural feces and so on. Hell…look how easy land base cabodes plug up! Then they want us using hose of 1/4 the volume and reduced further through valves and such. No…That’s why I sail with guys or really open minded Sheila’s. In the bucket and over the side. I have the bucket right up there with honesty and taxes…SV Joli Elle