What IS that smell?!

When we last left off, Dwayne and I were headed back to our home base in Florida. We spent the next week firming up a boat hauler and a tow to a marina that had haul out services. Why not sail to a marina? Well, once we made the decision that the best option was to ship the boat to Florida, we took down all of the sails and started removing anything that might hinder the shipping process.

So here we are. A week later, driving back to Connecticut. We found a great marina that would be able to haul us out. The towing guy said he would meet us on a Monday morning and we’d be set.

Halfway across the country and a call comes in

Hold on…not so fast. Halfway to Connecticut, the hauler called to tell us that his rig had broken down and he was headed to the shop. He would not be able to haul our boat to Florida anytime in the foreseeable future. Back to square one.

Luckily, we were able to snag another hauler, after approximately 30 phone calls. It seems that hauling out of the Northeast US is a bit of a pain because of all the toll roads and bridges and New York City. Once again, we were back on without altering the haul out plans we had made.

We arrived to the boat on a Saturday evening. We didn’t have much time to remove the last of the hardware and as much from the inside as we could. After opening the hatch, we were pleasantly surprised there had been no leaks (so we thought) and all appeared to be right where we left it.

Ohhh that smell …

We noticed, during our previous stay, that our head had a bit of a leak. It didn’t look like anything major. We had already decided that once arriving in Florida, one of the first projects would be to remove the head and all those plumbing lines and replace it with a composting head.

When we climbed aboard to start unloading, Dwayne headed up to the V-berth. When he stepped on the flooring by the bed, water seeped out. Uh-oh, what the heck is going on? We opened up the flooring which has a small locker and it was filled with water, but wait…no…no that wasn’t water.

Dwayne started cleaning up the area with paper towels and I (Heather) was all, “You might want to put some gloves on..that’s not water…that’s pee.” At first, Dwayne tried to disagree that it was water. Once we opened up the lockers near the holding tank, the smell of urine hit us like a ton of bricks. Lovely, just lovely. Long story short, once that mess was all cleaned, we found the pump out valves were not labeled correctly. When we pumped out the first time, nothing happened…..and the tank was full. Very full. So full that a few gallons had seeped out around the hose clamps. A few gallons.

Another beautiful morning in Connecticut for the day of towing. Mitch, from one of the nationwide boat-towing companies, was a great guy. We were able to get a full pump out before heading to the next marina. We verified that the stinking tank was empty! The plan was for Dwayne would drive our car to McMichael’s Marina in Mamaroneck, NY. I was to stay on the boat to hopefully get some footage of Long Island Sound. I was not prepared for what was going to happen next……..