Some Days Nothing Goes Right

So to start things off, it was sunny all weekend while I was working ( indoors in a windowless room)and when I wake up on my day off, its clouded over again.I could cry, all I want is some sun on my bones and some social time at the beach. In frustration I went to the tanning salon just to get a vitamin D fix, but have to say it irks me to have to pay for sunshine in June.

I have not had much luck with my Jabsco manual pump toilet. In the ten months I have had the boat, its worked maybe 3-4 weeks in total. Ive taken it apart four times now, replaced all the hoses and the handle and it still plugged up after 2 uses.I found a deal on Craigslist(where-else?) for an electric toilet with a macerator.I picked it up and took it in to River Marine to get all the hoses and battery wires ect I would need to hook it up.

I carefully looked over the whole situation and was feeling very confident that I could install it myself. The first thing I did was unbolt the old toilet from the floor. That was my first mistake, I had no more leaverage on anything else I was trying to do with it flopping around everywhere, still attached to its hoses. I pulled off the intake hose which had been shut off for a long time as the ball valve is seized. ( I had been filling the toilet with the shower head for months). Then I shut off the valve for the outflow hose and proceeded to take it off the through-hull.Smart cookie that I am, I had placed doubled up green garbadge bags under the hose, so that as I pulled it off, all the crap would drain into the bag and not my hold.That worked fairly well and I managed to bolt out of the boat with it and not puke or spill any ( a minor miracle as the boat was in chaos state and the bag stank to high heaven)

It was looking like the problem wasn't the hose after all but the though-hull itself was plugged. With great trepadation I opened the valve almost all the way and using a long screwdriver, started poking and feeling around for some kind of opening. Finally a trickle of shit made its way out of the pipe, gradually flowing faster and cleaner. I wasnt sure how fast it should be able to come in but didnt want to push my luck and so tried to close the valve.I had it turned as far as it would go but there was still a steady trickle pouring into the boat. I started to panic and tried putting the old hose back on but it was still leaking like a sieve. I hauled the hose off so I could get some clamps around it and jammed it back on again. By then my neighbor Mike had heard me thrashing about and came over to help. He got the hose back on and clamped down but it was still leaking!!( this boggled my mind as the valve was shut tight)He ended up using half a roll of duct tape around the joint to stop the leak, but what a mess.

My next dilema is I discovered that the hose from the new toilet to the through-hull is too small. Now I have to find out if there is some kind of adapter. On top of all this I had guessed at how much battery wire I would need to run from the battery manning the bilge to the toilet switch. I didnt take into account the extra length it would take to tuck it all out of sight and came up quite a few feet short.As I was told its better to have a straight line then one that is spliced together, I didnt really want to have to waste what I had paid for and buy more. I gave it some thought and decided to buy another battery instead and put it up under the couch. It was on my list anyway as I have always wanted to put in a second bilge pump.I got a deal on one from a friend and it fits where I wanted to put it, so thats a good start.

Mt last issue was that because my intake valve is seized, I needed to figure out a way to get water into the toilet. My first thought was to just attach a garden hose right to the toilet, but was told it would be too much pressure and that the toilet was meant to pump in water not just accept it. I finally decided to run a hose over- board into the river with a strainer type fitting on the end of it to keep out debris.

So tommorrow, Im on the hunt for a hose adapter and need to ask someone why my through-hull is not shutting off completely.Once I get that sorted out, the rest of it should be easy and not too time consuming.Wish me luck please, Im so tired of the plumbing thing, what a horrible job. I should be an expert at it by the time Im finished.

I went on quite the little shopping spree today(retail therapy to soothe the soul). I liked my new light so much, I decided to put another one on the other side where I cook. There isnt any lights on that side at all,so it was really needed. I wasnt sure if Rona had closed their store yet or not and was happy to find it still open. The only one they had left was the display model and a very patient store clerk risked his neck climbing amongst all the hanging fixtures to get it down for me.

Next it was off to Best Buy where I picked up a 15 inch LCD tv for the living room.It seems so decadent to have two tvs in such a small space, but its a drag when I want to cook ect and cant finish what I was watching. I also had bought a survalence camera awhile ago and was wanting a monitor for it.This tv also comes with a built in dvd player which is nice because some times I like to rent a movie and cant figure out how to get my dvd player that is separate from my other tv to overide the satellite. I got it home and tried to hook it up. I turned the sateliite reciever off before moving it like they tell you to, but when I turned it back on , it wouldnt work anymore. I already killed one a few months ago, so it looks like tomorrow I get to spend a few more hundred dollars on a new one.It never ends ...sigh.

As it seemed I wasnt get to get anything accomplised that I had set out to do, I decided to go and help Davids cousin Paul scan his resume and rewrite it. David had bought a scanner some months back but I had never used it before and it took the last of my patience to figure it out. I finally got it downloaded onto my computer but for some reason it wont open in microsoft word. Wrong file extension or something. Anyway, I had had enough for one day and called it quits.

I can only hope that tommorrow goes smoother. I called Otter Marine today and they had finally recieved some part they needed for the 85 outboard and were working on it. I cant wait to get the motorboat running, I might just run away lol

Add Plumber to My Resume

Ive been putting off trying to fix my toilet as I was scared of it. Scared of the horrible smells emanating from it and scared I would inadvertently unleash a flood of river water into the boat. Yesterday, I overcame my fear and decided to tackle it. I armed myself with rubber gloves, wads of paper towel, a huge jug of bleach and a screwdiver and went in to face my hell.

I turned off the valves and removed the pipes. I quickly found the problem in the outflow pipe. It was clogged with wetwipes that I had used one day when I ran out of toilet paper( note to self- wetwipes dont flush well at all). I got them out, flushed out the pipes and bravely opened the inlet valve to make sure water was coming in. It was, luckly at a rate I could control and get the valve closed again. I removed the cover from the pump mechanism to take a look at the gasket. I gave everything a good clean and tried to put it back together. There was a weird piece of loose plastic that took me about 3 hours and much swearing and screaming to figure out how it fit into everything. I finally figured it out and got things back together for the umpteenth time and Hallaluyah!! it works. I gave the bathroom a good scrub with liberal amounts of bleach and went to crack a well deserved beer to celebrate. No more midnight runs in the dark, yahoo

Hmmm.....Now What

Well the tent poles didnt fare too well in the end. That night we had 35 mile an hour gusts and heavy rain. One pole broke right off, another fell out of the bracket and ended up in the water. The one pole left still did a good job of sluffing off the water up front, but the back end got filled with water again. I dragged myself out of bed at the crack of dawn, tied my housecoat around my ass and crawled out onto the motor mount to bail it out. I hope the condo neighbors werent too offended by my mooning them. I finally got 15 1"x4"x12' cedar boards that Im hoping to build some kind of "A"-frame for the tarp . It looks like I will have to screw them into the hull of the boat which I really wanted to avoid doing( the less holes in my boat the better, is my motto) but the storms are supposed to get even worse next month, so I want a solid cover.

I hadnt heard back from the fellow thats trying to get my propane hooked up, so gave him a call this morning. He still hadnt heard back from the company thats supposed to be fixing my furnace, so thats all on hold for the moment. I did get the rest of my stovepipe for the woodstove today only to find out its now 2 inches too long, "sigh".... I will have to tie down David tomorrow for 5 minutes and get him to cut it for me. We have a new roomate at the marina that has some ideas for my tarp frame, so hopefully I can get that built tomorrow, tape the tarp around the exit for the stovepipe and get a fire going in here. I cant wait!!

David got an excellent deal on a huge truckload of material today. Along with my 1x4's he got a huge amount of plywood for floors, enough huge beams to finish supporting the floors, 3 propane forced air furnaces, enough tile to do his bathroom ( and a piece for me to put under my woodstove, now I just need to find someone to cut it), and some other stuff to build a bathroom. My toilet has decided to stop functioning altogether for some reason. The pump is really hard to use and I cant get water to flow in or the stuff thats in there to go out. I dont know much about the toilet so am scared to take it apart. It sits below the water line so I have visions of the sea pouring into the boat if I loosen the wrong thing. I can live without alot but a toilet isnt one of them. So many projects, so little time. I want to take advantadge of this dry weather to get the tarp sorted out tho, so guess thats top of the list for the moment. The list is subject to change at a moments notice .

We have finally put in an order for satellite tv, they are coming on the 21st to hook it up. I cant wait. I want to get a flat tv to mount on the wall. Luckily work has finally picked up again and I should have the money for it by the time its installed. Im not sure when Ill have time to watch it with all thats needed doing around here, but will be a nice distraction in the background. I can always use it to drown out the sound of the flapping tarps. One things for sure, I wont be bored this winter.

I will try and take some pictures tomorrow. Our marina has changed alot in the last few weeks. We now have a monterous huge boathouse that goes right across the middle of the marina. New docks had to built alongside and behind it so people could get to the boats on the other side. We have a few new additons as well. I hadnt been up to the Bowie in a few weeks( funny its only a few feet down the dock, I just never go there), so all the changes were quite a shock.

Well Im suffering from a Grand Marnier induced hangover, so off to bed early tonight so I will have some energy for tomorrows adventures. Nighty-nite........