Head Maintenance Underway

Insert whatever political/nutritional joke you wish here - mine? Cheers!

When we made the hop from St Simon’s sound up to St Catherine’s sound, we took advantage of the sea state (waves jostling the boat around) to do some head maintenance.  Previously we had rebuilt the aft head and done maintenance on the waste hoses as best we could - see Two Types of Boaters Head Repair to review that posting if you would like.  There is one really long run of hose that runs from the aft Y value forward to the holding tank in the bow.  It’s a really long run of hose and no good way to clean it out of the calcium buildup from uretic acid.   It’s so well placed in the boat that there really isn’t an easy way to remove the hose completely to clean it like we did the overboard discharge hose.  *Did you catch my positive spin on that?  So well placed.... Nice eh?

Insert whatever joke you want here - mine?  Bottoms up!

A few weeks back we were discussing this with Caliber Chris and Janet…..yes, cruisers talk a lot about their heads (toilets) – my dear friend Floy (world cruiser) warned me about this favorite cruiser topic fact.  Anyway, I had thought of using my favorite vinegar in the hose while underway to knock some of the calcium loose.  Caliber Chris suggested flat Coke/Pepsi  would do the trick as well and maybe a little better.   I opted for $.64 Wal-Mart brand cola.  I dumped it into the head and pumped several times so the entire run of hose would be filled with cola and then I let it sit for 5 hours while we slogged our way to St Catherine’s sound.  Finally I pumped all the cola through to the holding tank and then out - we were still out past the three mile mark so legal.  That run of hose “seems” to pump much better so I am going to call the maintenance a success.  And yes, out past the three mile mark offshore, there were some caffeinated fish!