"One Head Smells Much Like Another "
By Tom Caywood
From the April 1995 issue of TellTales Magazine
As we turned the boat into our old marina, several of our marina neighbors saw us and gathered around our slip in order to help with our lines. There were shouts of "Welcome back!" and "How long are you going to stay?" from the little group on the pier as we eased into our slip. Ah, home again. What a good feeling to have family and friends nearby, to be close to familiar restaurants and, best of all, to have easy access to boat repair and service people we knew and trusted.
As comfortable as we were on Clear Lake, we were ever mindful of our primary objective, which was: Do what needs to be done, then untie the lines and go. Each day of our stay was filled with tending to personal business, visiting with family and friends, and when time allowed, catching up on boat maintenance. Rush! Rush! Rush! There never seemed to be enough time for everything and we always seemed to be late. "Will we ever get all this stuff done and get on with our cruising?" I began to wonder.
Mañana, like most boats, can do many things, just not all things at the same time. For example, if both air conditioners are running, we can't run a hair dryer lest we trip a circuit breaker.
One Friday in August we were getting ourselves ready to go out for the evening. I, with keys in hand, was impatiently pacing by the door while Ann was rushing through her dressing routine. I heard the soft hum of the aft air conditioner give way to the busy growl of the hair dryer and knew that soon we'd be on our way.
"Only 10 or 15 minutes late," I thought as we hurried out the door a few minutes later. "About usual for us."
A few hours later, when we returned to the boat we discovered it was hot inside. Uh oh! Ann had neglected to turn the air conditioner back on before we left. What's worse, it smelled like sewage inside. Warm, fermented, seasoned by the heat sewage! Phew!
Well, there was nothing to be done about it so late at night except to turn on the rear air conditioner and close the door to the stateroom. Fortunately, the pungent odor hadn't reached our sleeping area, so the problem could keep until morning.
During the night, without the vicious August sun hammering down, the air conditioners did their work, and by morning, the entire boat was cool again. The odor was still present, but in the cooler temperature inside the boat it was no longer the eye-watering, throat-burning, cockroach-killing stench that had permeated the air the previous evening.
My first thought, as I prepared to troubleshoot the problem, was that the holding tank had sprung a leak. Perhaps even exploded! Reluctantly, I lifted the engine room access hatch, and with flashlight in hand, began my descent into the bowels of the boat. Down to the UNDERWORLD! Aboard MaÒana, the underworld is the place below the engine room deckplates inhabited by mysterious unseen creatures that make their presence known by strange groans punctuated by periodic bumps. One does not carelessly venture into a boat's underworld.
As I made my way down through the engine room, my imagination ran wild. "A ruptured tank," I thought, "awash in a sea of raw sewage." With trepidation, I lifted the final deckplate, the one that keeps the mysterious unseen creatures at bay, and exposed the holding tank. There it lay! Sinister, pulsating, glowing, and awash in a sea of . . . NOTHING! It was dry under the tank. The hose fittings were dry. There was no indication of leakage anywhere! The only other possible source of leaks would be the heads themselves.
So, with a feeling of puzzlement, I extracted myself from the bilge and made my way to the forward head. An inspection of those hoses and fittings proved them dry. The same with the aft head. Where was that awful odor coming from?
With that I had exhausted all my troubleshooting ideas. It was time to call in the cavalry, who would be in the form of Don Currie of Maritime Sanitation. When Barbara, Don's wife, answered the phone, I quickly gave her a rundown of the symptoms and what I'd done to that point. I told Barbara, "This is a real emergency and you've got to get Don over here as soon as possible."
"Well, Tom," Barbara replied, "this is Saturday, you know. And besides, Don's gone to Dallas and won't be back until Monday."
"Oh no," I thought, "if this isn't fixed, and right away, we might be forced to move off the boat!"
Saturday evening was a repeat of Friday. Running late! Rush to get dressed! Air conditioner off, hair dryer on, and out the door to return a few hours later to a forgotten aft air conditioner and a hot boat.
The stench was even worse! In the forward part of the boat it was impossible to breath the foul, choking air; but as in the previous night, the aft cabin, with the door closed, was habitable. Oh Don, please hurry back from Dallas!
Sunday morning, as on Saturday, in the cooler temperature inside the boat the odor wasn't so bad, or maybe we had just become accustomed to it. At least we could stay aboard and continue working on our unfinished projects.
With the sewage problem on the back burner for the moment, it was time to move on to other things. As I laid out the equipment for the next project, I realized an essential piece of gear was hidden away somewhere in the forepeak. In keeping with the axiom that every boat project begins with a search for parts or tools, I made my way forward to begin the search. While digging through the pile of junk that accumulates in that little-used part of the boat, I bumped one of the small net hammocks hanging from the overhead --- the one that stores produce.
I recoiled in horror as a vile, smelly liquid dripped out of the hammock and down my arm. Barely controlling my gagging, I peered into the produce net and found, tucked away in a plastic bag, a head of cabbage. A very old head of cabbage! A partially liquefied head of cabbage! What a stench. It smelled just like raw sewage.
Frantically, I grabbed a half-dozen plastic bags, the kind that come from grocery stores, and stuffed one into the other until I had an airtight container six bags thick. Then, very carefully, I extracted the repulsive, dripping mess from the hammock and stuffed it into the layered bags. With my repugnant load held at arms length, I quickly made my way to the dumpster and laid to rest "The Exploding Holding Tank."
We had "HEAD" problems, all right . . . CABBAGE HEAD problems. It's amazing how much one head smells like another.
