The Bucking Toilet: En route to Key West

When’s the last time your toilet acted like a bucking bronco?  Leaving aside that time you hoisted way too many margarita’s, it would be the last time you were attempting to sit on the throne as it was rolling through the swells in the ocean. Like the bronco, the waves are unpredictable. You immediately grasp the reason the “head” in a sailboat is so small.

With no reins to hold onto, you get leverage with your feet against the wall in front of you to keep from pitching forward in your yawing, rocking, rolling, little bathroom on Neptune’s ceiling, then stabilze yourself laterally by pushing against the walls with your arms while doing your level best to ease the release button on one or both of your nether sphincters. 

Your adventure has just begun, matey. There’s the matter of filling and flushing the little apparatus. Since, aside from the accomplished captain,  I am the only crew on this beautifully maintained Valiant 37  blue water sailing vessel, I live in fear that I will, in a careless or flung-around moment, apply too much pressure and break the little intake lever under the pump in/out handle. It does not require a nautical engineer to figure the consequences.

There are many no-no’s aboard a sailboat. Over my ration of grog on the second night out, I confessed my hyper level of concern while operating the ingenious contraption.

Tangle the jib lines? Forgivable - as long as you can untangle them before they’re needed next. Leave a fender over the side after you’ve exited the dock? An embarrassment to the captain, who scoffs at passing boats who’ve been negligent, but tolerates it since I’m on board for only two weeks and will learn fast. Screw up the propane stove? Not good. But, there are always canned goods. 

Render the head inoperable? As the captain, a college buddy who decided two years ago to chuck it all, buy this classic-design sailboat and become a ‘live aboard,’ said, ”That is a walk the plank offense.”

Presently in Marathon Key, 200 miles from where we began six days ago in Fort Pierce, FL, we are about 40 miles from our destination, Key West, FL. The plank has remained stowed.

 

Comments

[Chris McArdle]

I stopped Colin on his way to bed to read this - the computer chair rolled back and forth as he read it and he's still laughing as he goes upstairs. Chris

[Lynn Dowall]

Hey Paul, Glad to see you're once again messing around in boats! You're in the right location: south! Dick's been stuck in Cape May, NJ for 6 days as 2 Nor'easters plow through that area on the way to NE. Hang on! Have fun. Lynn

[Sal F]

Living life's experiences. Good for you!!