We all wake later than normal but those of us who were up in the night are less rested than the others. But there’s a nasty surprise in store for Mike – the port stern toilet is completely blocked – and this isn’t discovered until someone has done their morning wee and this now fills the bowl. Yum. This has not happened before and Mike has been dreading it.
Mike finds the spare parts that will probably be required but doesn’t want to start the job without rubber gloves – understandably! So Allison, John and I go shopping, with John at the helm of the dinghy. As we tootle at learner speed to the dock, John asks me how to stop the engine when we get there, and as this is a case of the blind leading the blind, I tell him I can’t remember apart from pulling the rip cord. The last time I drove the dinghy was just after the hurricane last October! John spots a likely looking button and presses it – we stop.
Leaving the boat tied and locked to the dock (this is Cane Garden Bay after all) we head off to Bobby’s for ‘a couple of things’. On the way back to the dinghy, John makes loud donkey noises (he feel like a packhorse), drawing strange looks from a rasta man walking towards us, who probably wonders whether he has had too much wacky backy!
It’s almost midday before Mike and John get started on the blockage. First Mike has to remove the contents of the toilet bowl with a small plastic bottle, cut in half. When he can remove no more with the bottle, he uses a sacrificial sponge to get rid of the remainder. He then dismantles the toilet pump, presuming that this is where the problem is. It isn’t. So he and John start to trace the pipes from the pump to determine exactly which part of the pipework the blockage is in. It turns out that the blockage is at the valve which directs ‘stuff’ either to the sea or to the holding tank. Unfortunately for him, it is John that is at the messy end of this discovery.
The blockage is cleared with the aid of a screwdriver and a pair of long nosed pliers, and the contents are removed via another cut off water bottle and emptied overboard. Then everything is re-assembled, tested and the clean up begins with the aid of more rubber gloves and half a gallon of Chlorox bleach.
During the morning, there has been much activity from the PR Navy. Lots of boats have left but lots more are arriving to jostle for their places. By the time the toilet is cleared, the bay is in mayhem and Mike decides to shift the boat further out onto a mooring ball to avoid a repetition of last night and the anchor fiasco, so we move.
Mike and John celebrate their plumbing success with a couple of dark and stormies. Allison and I join then with a couple of BBCs which are so filling that we don’t really want lunch so just make simple sandwiches.
The crew enjoy a leisurely afternoon, during which Mike goes to bed.
Later on the rest of the crew go to the beach (John now being confident and competent in the dinghy), we eat barbecued salmon and yellow rice. We introduce the crew to “Game On”, realising after it has started that maybe the theme and language might not be suitable for the youngest crew member (the one least likely to object!) but it’s too late. Oops.
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