More than you ever wanted to know about our toilet

January 19, 2018 / FloatsOurBoat / 2 Comments

Ok, remember that decision to install a composting head? Well our Nature’s Head composting toilet finally arrived and is installed. We decided to use coconut coir as the composting material because it is very renewable, and is less likely to harbor bugs than the peat moss alternative. Following advice from Carolyn of The Boat Galley, we choose Planter’s Pride Beats Peat coconut coir. It took almost a week of allowing the coconut to sit in the sun, with one cup of water to achieve a big zip lock bag of dry and crumbly coconut husk. I just kept thinking of pina coladas! Then we filled the composting compartment of the toilet, and we’re good to go!

They say we should never experience odors or other unpleasantness, as long as the liquids and solids are stored separately. But just in case, I am well armed with every possible odor deterrent, insect fighter, and wetness absorber. Take that, nasty smells and gnats!

Of course, installing this toilet sounds simple, but….

We had to address the boat wiring to hook up a ventilation fan
Found a leak in the pump out deck fitting with rotten deck core that needed to be resolved,
Had lots of pipes and holes and sea cocks to fill,
And had to build a platform to support the toilet so that it would actually fit in our teeny, tiny bathroom (head)

Just another example of how one project begets another project and another project and another …..

Tool of the Day ….

January 18, 2018January 18, 2018 / FloatsOurBoat / Leave a comment

…. the clumsily named “pneumatic / manual oil changer vacuum fluid extractor.” Made performing an oil change on our diesel engine and transmission MUCH easier. And no electricity required. Now we just need to do an oil change on the outboard motor to complete the cycle.

Tool of the Day… Winch Grease

January 14, 2018January 14, 2018 / FloatsOurBoat / 2 Comments

One of the projects on our task list when we made it to Florida was to service the winches. Or, as our friend Nathan says, “SERVICE THE WINCHES!!!”

When we tried to turn the winches by hand, one was frozen and wouldn’t turn. So we figured we’d do them all at the same time. I had no idea what this entails, but luckily there are manuals, and YouTube videos, and lots of instructions. The tricky part, is even the vocabulary of winches is not strictly regular English.

Do you have any idea what a collet is? Or a pawl? Or gear spindle? Since I didn’t know any of these words, it made interpreting those instructions a little bit tricky. And who knew those winches would turn into such a gigantic pile of small parts?

Mike was in charge of taking the winch apart and cleaning all of the parts. I was responsible for applying oil and grease, and putting them all back together. Eventually …… we actually succeeded in getting them all back together. But not on the first day we tried.

Tool of the Day …. Bilgkote

January 12, 2018 / FloatsOurBoat / Leave a comment

Final step of reclaiming the black water holding tank of tool box storage consisted of several coats of bilgekote; a very thick paint. This did a good job of sealing the hold surface after sanding, and removed any remaining waste odor. It worked so well here, that I continued to paint all of the hold storage compartments and the entire bilge. A mask was key! At one point I think I came very close to passing out while upside down in the hold, breathing in those fumes!

And just for fun, a few gratuitous boat / tool chaos pictures! I’m grateful that we decided to rent an Airbnb instead of trying to live on the boat during these initial project stages. It gave us a place to escape to every evening to shower, eat, sleep and then start all over again the next day. PLUS, we had internet access to research all of our questions about the next step in each project.