" When Pigs Fly"

Another day spent at Aqua Harbor and I tackled one of those truly shitty jobs. We chose Aqua Harbor Marina to stay for a couple of days because they have a good maintenance shop. I have been up there every day. Since being here I repaired the anchor light and replaced two blown fuses in the inverter. I also worked with the marina’s electrical guy to fix the salon AC unit (a story of its own) and had their guys  change the oil in both engines and the generator.   With all the little jobs completed I could no longer put off the dreaded work on the head.  

For quite some time the forward head has been making noises like some creature from the deep. We  were concerned that it may decide to stop working any day so weeks ago we purchased a repair kit to fix it and stopped using that head for BIG jobs. Yea, you figure out why. Over the past several weeks we have practiced the five most dangerous words in the English language, “maybe it will go away”. Well it didn’t. At times it did seem to stop so we crossed our fingers. Nevertheless, the grinding noise always returned, each time with a vengeance. So with the promise from the weatherman that it would rain all day today I tore into it.

I looked up the mascerator pump on line and I had a really good exploded view of all the parts of in the kit. Unfortunately the parts we received were just thrown in a bag without any identification or part numbers, so I had to decipher which parts went where, This slowed us down a bit. The instructions indicated the work could be performed without removing the pump. Fat chance on that. We opted for the removal method.

The pump

Removing the pump wasn’t too bad. The hardest part was getting an old fat guy into the tight spaces and cramped positions. To imagine my predicament view any position in the Kama Sutra, only my partner was a little white china bowl, and she wasn’t so much fun. With the pump removed, I sanitized it inside and out. Like working on most older equipment, removal of the old parts was a bit challenging and I made one trip to the parts shop here at the marina for a piece not included in the kit. Installation of the new macerator parts was actually pretty easy. Then reinstalling was just like removal all over again. Put it all together and it worked great except for one small issue; it wasn’t pumping water. It flushed and evacuated the bowl like right now if you poured water into the bowl but it wasn’t pumping water.

At this point  I was getting a little  aggravated. I had been slaving on this project for about 4 hours. Everything was installed properly, so what’s the problem now? Off came the intake hoses and the cover plate for the impeller. All is OK there. So I got an idea to prime the intake hose. With the hose primed I reconnected it and it pumped water. Hurray!! No leaks, all great huh! Not so fast there, my friend. The Admiral had an idea of her own. The forward head is so much quieter than the one in the master suite, she now wants a repair kit installed in that one. I’ll get the repair kit, but just “maybe it will go away”.

Sunrise at Aqua Yacht Harbor

Going against our normal boating rules we plan to boat on Saturday and head down the Tenn-Tom tomorrow if the weather looks good. This doesn’t look too promising however as there’s another 60% chance of rain tomorrow. But if we have to be stuck someplace Aqua Harbor is our 1^st choice right now. There is a nice pool, exercise room, a maintenance shop with just about anything you need to complete a project, a restaurant, two courtesy cars, and a very responsive staff.

After the rain, a brighter side!

Cruising in rain is not our issue with moving on, it’s not knowing  how much rain and the possibility of high wind. Boating in rain isn’t that much fun but anchoring with the possibility of a storm when you don’t have to is boating stupid. Our next travel day will be about 45 miles and our stop for the night will be an anchorage in Bay Springs. Our available marina choices will become more sparse heading down the Tenn-Tom. So we’ll see what the morning brings and make a decision then.  We want to be in Columbus, AL by Friday and it will only take about three days cruising so we can wait for the weather if it doesn’t look good. Besides, I’m sure there is some other project I can do tomorrow.

See ya on the water