Our approach in this blog is to largely focus on the highlights of our slow travels by sailboat. But highlights are always balanced out, and just because the other side of the ledger generally doesn’t show up here doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Case in point – the toilet stopped working properly today. This is an important piece of gear aboard Madrone, so we dove in (not literally, thankfully) to investigate.
Mike disassembled the toilet and diagnosed the problem
The culprit this time? An octopus, or maybe a squid – it was a little bit hard to tell. Madrone’s toilets flush with seawater that is pumped in from overboard – the unfortunate creature had taken up residence in the intake and was sucked in by the toilet’s pump.
Angie took over when it turned out to be an animal (even though it was dead)
Disassembling the inner workings of the toilet pump is nobody’s idea of a good time, and adding a decomposing cephalopod to the mix doesn’t improve the job.
After a bit of toilet surgery Angie extracted lots of bits of the squid (or little octopus) and the toilet flushed normally once again
A quick word on the division of labor aboard Madrone. Mike generally handles the mechanical jobs, so he started disassembling and cleaning the toilet. But nearly anytime an animal comes into play, Mike calls in the professional and Angie takes over…
After the toilet project was wrapped up it was time to celebrate our success with a few beverages
