Rebuilding the Marine Head - Part 2

After a few nights of research and some deliveries from Amazon.com, I headed up the turnpike early Friday morning with a plan.  The videos had said that replacing the pump assembly should take 15 minutes or so.  I allowed an hour... leaving early enough that I could complete it and still start my workday from Seas The Day on time for my conference calls.

I got to KYC and took the launch out.  The bay was relatively calm.

I quickly set out all the tools, parts, buckets, etc.

Shut off the seacocks under the sink...

And removed the pump assembly...

It turned out that at least one of the problems was a bad joker valve (you shouldn't see any holes in it like below.  This is an items that evidently should be changed once a year.  (We had not done that.)  Lesson learned.

This almost seemed too easy. (Read below for the rest of the story.)  The new one went on without a hitch and we were back ready to do our business!

Get your mind out of the gutter... I meant working from the boat (like doing my real job).

I work for a nice company with a great policy that allows me to "work from home" occasionally.  All I need is my laptop, a wifi hotspot (KYC is planning to install a special dockside wifi thingy this season) and with the VPN, it's just like I'm at my office without all the monitors.

So I did my prep work, emails and joined some WebEx meetings during the morning.  It started getting kind of rocky, so at lunch time I brought everything ashore where I could plug in and continue in the afternoon with a nice view from my "office".

I had only packed shorts and after a bit, Bill took pity on me and let me into the waterfront room where I could get everything out my boss needed.  Finally, all trips (even those that never leave the mooring) end up at the KYC bar and this evening was no exception.

While there, I had a wonderful conversation with Dan, a "colleague" from IFF (in quotes, because I didn't know he was a colleague at the time - we only overlapped a couple of weeks).  He's also a recent member (much younger) that enjoys photography (mostly videos).  He made a wonderful video for the club's upcoming open house.

After running some errands, I went back aboard to catch some sleep before my brother and his family came out for a sail on Saturday.

I had... easily... my WORST night on Seas The Day.  The waves were not bad... I've been out with rougher conditions, but I was really being tossed around in the V-berth.  I woke up (at 1:30 - after the launch service ended) and realized that I was actually getting seasick.  Fortunately we had a few remedies on board (I chewed some ginger gum and wore the seasick bands the rest of the night) and I was able to sleep for the night.

I'll spare you details - and certainly photos - on the next adventure.  I woke up kind of tired and forgot to put water in the bowl before doing my business... and must have used too much TP for the head and... well...  It clogged.  This time I was practiced at disassembling the pump but... um... things oozed, and well, it was a MESS.  After a LOT of swearing... some rinsing... disassembly and reassembly, a bleach wash for my hands and feet (I had to stand somewhere), the head was back looking like it did above and working properly.

Fortunately it was very calm water and after cleaning up, I had another taste test of the freeze dried food I've been storing away for an emergency.

After breakfast, things on-board started getting rocky again and I walked forward and realized that my mooring (we just had installed) was badly wound up/tangled resulting in a very short lead from the ball to the bow.  This had the effect of pulling the bow down a bit and having it move with the waves that moved the ball, and was the cause of all the motion issues I was experiencing.

I placed a call to Dan and he said it would be squared away in the next day or two.

At this point, I checked the weather and it was clear that rain was going to be the order of the day.  I checked in with my brother and we agreed to cancel the day.

So I headed back down the turnpike and passed several bands of severe rain.  Canceling was the right decision.

Later that evening John came down for a Father's Day visit.  He's starting his own Amazon business and had a sample I could use for some product photography practice.  So if I couldn't practice my one hobby (sailing), there's always another.  Happy Father's Day!