I finished cleaning the bilge yesterday. Today, I hurt. My forearms ache from gripping the scrub brush; my back is sore from bending over all day and I accidentally tried to stand up while still under the salon table (not something I recommend anyone try); and my shoulders hurt from holding the palm sander. Was it worth it? Ask me after the Advil kicks in. Tomorrow I’m going to prep the bilge for Bilge Kote.
Our new water tanks arrived today. We’re going to dry fit them tomorrow and figure out what we’ll need for bracing them in the bilge. I’m hoping Rich measured correctly. He thinks the aft tank might be a really tight fit because he forgot to factor in the bilge narrowing the farther aft it goes. The back of the old water tank was 11 inches wide. The new water tanks are a little longer forward and aft so the aft end is going to extend a few inches over the deep part of the bilge which is closer to 10 1/2 inches wide. Oops! I guess we’ll see if the proof is in the pudding tomorrow.
Last weekend we tried to figure out what the heck is wrong with our holding tank, but we didn’t get very far. On Tuesday Rich borrowed his dad’s camera to run down the inlet and outlet to see what’s going on . It worked ok, but we still aren’t sure what shape the dip tubes are in. We did find out that the holding tank was absolutely full. How is this possible?! Several months ago we had Kurtis pump it out and we haven’t had a toilet since then. The best we can guess is whatever Kurtis got out was from the plumbing hose and not from the tank, which makes some sense since when we removed the hose it was bone dry…mostly. On Wednesday Rich bought a little $8 pump that attaches to his drill. He pumped about 10 gallons out of the holding tank into a bucket which he then dumped into the marina septic system. The $8 pump crapped out after 10 gallons so Plan B was to use the $20 Bucket Max Shop Vac he bought months ago. It worked pretty well and he was able to empty the tank with the exception of about the last 1 inch or so. I bought a new Bucket Max Shop Vac so the old one is now dedicated to real shitty jobs…literally.
Rich called for an estimate on glossy Formica for the headliner, the walls and ceiling in the bathroom, and the side walls in the main cabin. At $92.40 per sheet plus tax it’s more than double what we thought it would be so on to Plan B…matte finish Formica for ~$40 per sheet. If there’s one thing I’m learning through boat-ownership it’s to accept disappointment and try to roll with it.
My daughter is learning so much. Accepting disappointment is not easy. She is an amazing person.