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by Ken Ely Call me Job. Ishmael is taken. I begin my narrative in a time before... well... in a time before. "Alyssa? Do you want to go with me to dump the port-a-pottie?" I ask my youngest daughter with an abounding desire to share this signal moment. We have just come in from a day sail. The lower chamber of the pottie is half full. I have just removed it from the head and am about to go topside with it. It is to be the first time I am to enjoy the ease of disposal that the neat little unit provides. "What will we be doing?" the nine year-old demands to know. "Dumping the pottie in a discharge basin over on 'A' dock." "Where's 'A' dock?" "It's the dock Grampa's boat is on." "No? I don't think I want to watch that. But prob'ly Jaclyn does." With more than sufficient diaphragm, Alyssa calls up to the cockpit where her eleven year-old sister is pulling the winch covers down over the winches to ensure that water does not evaporate from them too rapidly after the next rain. "Jac! Do you want to go with Poppa to dump poop beside Grampa's boat?" "No," comes the distracted reply, charged with a deflating indifference. As I trudge toward 'A' dock, accompanied only by the lower chamber of the port-a-pottie, which I carry suitcase-fashion by its convenient handle, my smile cannot be suppressed. With the emptying of this container, I will celebrate the end of holding tank-oriented sailing. Never again will "poop" be the pole star around which my voyages revolve. In 1956, Naniloa had been originally equipped with a head that discharged directly into the sea. When this arrangement became environmentally incorrect, extravagant loops of plastic piping and a 14-gallon holding tank were installed, crammed into the ship's one and only hanging locker, which rendered it (the locker) useless for any other purpose. When my brother and I acquired the boat in 1987, he pronounced her to be deficient in burp valves and immediately installed one in a new series of loops that wound beneath the sink in the head, rendering that area useless, as well. After Naniloa began her career as a family-with-children boat, we found that, with so many females using the head, 14 gallons of holding capacity meant that we cruised to pump-out stations. Beside all that, as early as 1988, I speculated that the holding tank and the loops of plastic pipe were becoming unsanitary. The loops were becoming sticky to the touch and the boat was smelly, even when the tank was empty. The flush pump on the bowl soon failed under the girls' high-volume use. I removed the entire bowl and took it to my office to rebuild between patients. The patients seemed to have been a distraction for, when reinstalled in the head, the bowl would not flush. Inspection by my brother revealed that I had put most of the rebuild kit in backward or upside down. This, he promptly rectified, admonishing me to consult him without fail should I experience any more trouble. Almost immediately, I experienced more trouble. The flush pump became so difficult to work that my fourteen year-old son tore the bowl from the cabin sole in his effort to flush it. Dutifully, I consulted my brother, who recommended a lubricant specifically designed for plumbing like mine. I bought a jug of it, read the instructions, and poured a capful into the bowl. After flushing one or two strokes, the elixir's effect became immediately manifest: the pump handle went up and down with no restriction at all and with no pumping, either. I called my brother in again. After taking the whole business apart and washing all of the various valves, rings, and chambers, he reassembled it, poured a cupful of lubricant into the bowl and flushed it through. The pump worked perfectly. I thanked him profusely, to which he replied, "Now, leave the goddam thing alone!" A capful of the lubricant administered every so often kept the flush mechanism in such good order that the head actually became a female inviting compartment. As such, it was more often resorted to. Hence, pump-out stations were more often resorted to. Very often, though, the pump-out stations were not user friendly. Before the marina was rebuilt, our own pump-out station in Blaine was the worst. "Andy, the holding tank pump is not working properly again," I informed the young Blaine Harbor wharfinger on the other side of the harbormaster's counter. "Well! The commodore of the yacht club just used it and he didn't say anything about it not working," Andy replied, with bureaucratic superiority. "From which, Andy, we may conclude only that the commodore's sanitary virtues are abject. I am telling you that the pump is leaking badly. Actually spraying brown water. Would you care to inspect my shoes?" "No." "Then please see that the pump is repaired - again." On my way back to my boat, I encountered my father-in-law carrying his port-a-pottie tank toward the Harbor Master's building. "Where are you going with that?" I asked. "Up to dump it down a toilet in the rest room." He bent slightly to appraise his deck shoes and brown-speckled white socks. "The pump-out station doesn't work very well." "Just so," I agreed, bowing to indicate my own similar condition. He took his departure, but the benefit of emptying the contents of one's tank into any convenient toilet ashore intrigued me. Later that summer, sailing in company with two other boats, we put into Reid Harbor, Stuart Island. It is listed in cruising literature as having a pump-out station. As we made our way, line ahead, toward our moorings, we filed past a bright blue metal barge moored between pilings. Later, over a glass of merlot enjoyed aboard Heino Sunter's boat, I asked why so many boats resorted tither. "That's your advertised pump-out station" Heino replied. "You pull right up to it and pump away. And I mean pump. It has a big lever on it like a railroad handcar, only it's not a double-deal. You just pump it back and forth." My anticipation was aroused. "How splendid!" The next morning, I left my moorings early and ranged along side the blue barge. As Rachel and I made fast to it, Heino came over in his skiff. He was a welcome sight to my wife, who has never liked much of anything about holding tanks. Heino volunteered to man the hose for her while I pumped. Giving a heave at the pump lever, I found its movement reluctant, at best. Heino chuckled. "Yes. You kinda have to put some effort into it." Bracing myself in a wide stance, I pushed mightily. The lever moved to the end of its traverse as if the pump was siphoning bunker oil. I pulled like a titan and the lever responded like it was drawing cold taffy. I began to sweat as I pushed a second time. Halfway through the second pull, Heino called, "Okay! That's enough" I was incredulous. "Three and a half strokes to a dry tank?" "Oh, yeah! This thing really sucks!" Next stop, in Friday Harbor, I again needed pump-out facilities. Instead of a barge, Friday Harbor provided portable tanks that could be rolled along the dock, right out to one's boat. Friday Harbor's guest moorage facilities are a rambling assortment of wooden docks flung out over the water with zig-zag interconnections. The holding tank pump carts then in use resided next to the great brow that led up to the shore - a long way from our boats. Not only were the different widths and levels of the zig-zag docks a challenge to negotiate with the cart, the children lying across the docks, trying to catch shrimp, posed another hazard. And even if the children were not lying in the way, they invariably had shrimping equipment scattered over the dock. The cart I chose (because the newer one was not there) was the older of the two. It had a rusty pump handle, and raggedy, solid rubber tires. Its fragmented axle bearings not only made it difficult to push and steer, it set up a frightful din that announced to the entire marina that a holding tank pilgrimage was taking place. Adults sitting in their boats took a keen interest in my progress; the children lying across the docks angling for shrimp were oblivious. It was necessary to stop every four or five feet, tap a kid, say "Excuse me," then help them move all their stuff. Every hundred feet or so, no kid was around but the stuff was; and it fell to me to move it myself. Arriving at my boat feeling like I had come over the Oregon Trail, I hooked up the hose and gave a heave at the pump handle. Reminiscent of my episode with the lubricant, the handle moved quite easily. Reminiscent of the lubricant, neither did it pump. I was somewhat less patient with the children as I returned the useless cart. Rather than tapping and helping I just bellowed, "Excuse me!" from behind the cart. When I arrived at the great brow, though, I was delighted to find that the newer cart, the infinitely newer cart, had come back. I sped with it over the docks to my boat. It did not screech and its pneumatic tires were not thunderous on the dock planking but I announced my way to the children by shouting "Clear away forward! Clear away ahead! D'ya hear me, there? Clear away, I say!" The pump worked well. My holding tank was empty in a trice. My father-in-law, who had sailed in company with us, asked if there was room in the cart for the contents of his port-a-pottie. I pumped it out. Heino needed pumping, too, so we wheeled over and pumped his holding tank. Then, a neighbor, made bold by my apparent good will toward the boating community, hailed me to pump out his boat. The cart was completely full when I returned it to the head of the dock. I thought about my father-in-law's arrangement. His port-a-pottie could be pumped out like a holding tank; yet, it could be carried up to a toilet and dumped. Any toilet in any marina, or any out-house in any park would do. I was converted. When we got back to Blaine, Naniloa was converted. And the occasion of my first "dumping," was a personal milestone. I toasted the event with a beer when I got back to the boat. A trip to Sucia Island after the conversion, however, presented me with the prospect of having to lug the port-a-pottie across the island to the only old-fashioned out-house remaining. All the other out-houses had been replaced with new "Clivus Multrim'' facilities. Now, if you are unfamiliar with a Clivus, it is the quintessence of out-houses: it is a "mulching" outhouse, two stories tall perched on a slope, like a house with a daylight basement. Two stalls are in the upper level; the machinery is in the lower. There is a placard in each stall extolling the virtues of composting toilets. The placard also tells you what can go down the toilet and what cannot. What can go down is raw human waste. Lighted tobacco products will blow the thing up. Plastic and metal will cause the park ranger to blow up. A toll-free number is posted if you require more toilet paper, or, you can go on the web, if your cell phone is so equipped. What the placard does not say is whether the chemistry in port-a-pottie tanks can go down the Clivus. This I had to discover from the park ranger, as Sucia Island is not within my cell phone service area. Taking the lower unit of my port-a-pottie ashore, I met the ranger coming out of the lower end of the Clivus. 'I wish I had invented that thing! " I said by way of a hail. "So do I!" he replied emphatically. "Really?" I wondered. "Why's that?" "Because I'd punch you right in the nose!" I quickly concluded that the toll-free number probably provided precautionary instructions for greeting park rangers who had encountered garbage in the Clivus. "Cans?" I sympathized. "Plastic," he admitted. He also admitted that I could empty my port-a-pottie tank into the Clivus provided my chemistry was not the formaldehyde mixture of ancient times but the new, improved, biodegradable stuff. I was formaldehyde free, so I emptied my lower unit, happy to have avoided a laden trek across the island. Thanks to the port-a-pottie, as a boater, I am no longer "chained to the pot!" And, after that first dumping of my lower chamber "beside Granpa's boat," I became an avid spokesman for the entire port-a-pottie industry. One particular incident, however, has served to raise my evangelistic zeal to fever pitch. It was a 4th of July, and Blaine was celebrating. I was standing among the carnival booths, set up within view of the marina, when I happened to notice a motor cruiser pulling up to the Plover ferry's landing. Being, at the time, the chairman of the board for the entity that operates that ferry, I made my way down to the dock. By the time I got to the ferry's slip, the man who belonged to the intruding boat had removed the pumper cart from its dock box, had wheeled it to his boat, and had begun to pump his holding tank. "Excuse me, sir," I advised. "You cannot do that here. You'll have to move your boat further down the dock. This section is a ferry landing." "This section," he countered, without stopping, "is a pump-out station. See? The pumper is kept in that big dock box." "Yes, it is kept in that box," I agreed. "But the part of the dock where you have tied has 'Plover Ferry' written all over it, not 'Pump Out Station.' The ferry will be coming soon and you need to move your boat." His wife, a very enthusiastic lady, came up to stand beside me. "Isn't this exciting?" she bubbled, gripping my arm for emphasis. "We just bought this boat! This is our first time pumping our holding tank!" Politely assuring her that holding tanks were only exciting when something went dreadfully wrong, I launched into a sermon on the virtues of port-a-potties. I had just concluded my summary remarks when Plover caught my eye, making her way in. "'Sir, you must move your boat! The ferry is coming!" "I'm almost finished," he replied, a little agitated. "I just have to empty the cart's tank." With that, he whipped the cart back across the dock, jammed its hose into the sewer plumbing and pushed the green lighted button on the cart's electric motor. The cart surged into its emptying cycle. I had just opened my mouth to remonstrate when, with a loud "Poof," the nozzle was blown out of the plumbing. A geyser of sewage jetted twenty feet into the air. Too amazed to run, I stood gaping as brown water rained down upon the man, upon his wife, and upon me. He tried cramming the nozzle back into the plumbing, which only produced a shorter but broader fountain of sewage. Coming to my senses, I yanked the cart's power cord. The fountain subsided. "Get your boat out of here!" I bellowed. "The ferry is here!" "I've got to clean this up!" he sputtered, rapidly stripping to his underwear. "I'll handle it!" I said, shoving him and his wife toward their boat. "Just get your boat out of the way!" I grabbed a water hose and began to spray the dock. His boat engine roared to life. I could hear his wife shrieking at him from inside the boat but couldn't make it out. When he throttled back, the entire marina heard her plainly: "I'm not kidding you, Jim! We're not doing this again! We're getting one of those port-a-potties!" |