Its The Plumber I've Come to Fix The Sink

Baby feet are much cuter than bilge pumps

As we finish the last bit of wiring until such time as we add new electronics, we are now moving on to the next theme on our list- plumbing. We are planning on redoing the whole shebang and have been figuring out what we have, what doesn't work and what can be improved.

First item up are the bilge pumps. We had 2- one electric pump and one manual. Since Mark is a big fan of redundancy, we need more pumps. Our bilge is very narrow and very deep so of course the standard off the shelf variety won't fit without major reconstruction. The current plan is to have 2 automatic bilge pumps- one deep in the bilge and one higher up that should only run if the water gets really high inthe bilge. I hope we never have reason to use that secondary pump!

As Mark was taking apart the manual bilge pump for refurbishment he noticed that our pump doesn't empty out completely. This means that we had a bit of salt encrustation from the one time we had to use the manual pump 2 years ago. Lesson learned- flush that pump with fresh water! We also discovered that our manual bilge pump is what we would use to discharge black water from the head holding tanks. We haven't had reason to use this as we've only been in protected waters and therefore have pumped out when necessary.

Remember how I told you our manual pump never completely dries out? That means if we kept what we have at some point we would have sewage left in our manual pump. That my friends means we would carry a bit of poop with us and not in the holding tank where it beklongs. Eww. I've got a toddler in diapers who refuses to use the toilet. I do not need any more extra poop in my life. This obvious-to-everyone-but-clueless-peeps-like- Mark-and-I-info means we are reconfiguring our head discharge system. We will be adding a dedicated manual pump for offshore discharge. This also means we will be able to remove about 20 feet of sanitation hose which will not only free up a large bit of space but will remove 20 feet of hose that can/will eventually become permeated and smelly. We've also long thought that 2 heads, while nice removes quite a bit of storage space. We plan on reconfiguring the 2 holding tanks so that they both service the rear head. We want to remove the forward head and use it for storage. We plan on not tearing down the forward head, but just removing the toilet and rearranging the plumbing. This will give us the option to reinstall the forward head should we ever decide to sell the boat.

While Mark and I make plans for plumbing, the girls are enjoying the beautiful sunny weather which is the hallmark of spring time in Texas. The verbena and roses are blooming and Kitty and Maura spend their afternoons in the garden. $2 buys a bunch of sidewalk chalk and a large container of bubbles which gives us weeks of fun. Its time to kick off the shoes, scribble in the sun and listen to the birds singing. Time to daydream and imagine and just enjoy the here and now. Now about that plumbing, lets talk about pressurized water...