Toilet Fixed

Sunday Morning Walk to the Market

At this point the entire boat has been cleaned with bleach except the starboard quarter berth area which I will be doing in the coming week.  The head and all of its storage above and below the wash basin is clean, as is the interior of the closet, all of the cabin and galley storage, and the navigation station. 

Yesterday I tackled the port quarter berth area in spite of the fact that the cabin was crammed with the material from the V berth area and found that conditions were not as bad as I had expected.  The cover over the mattress was damp but the mattress itself was so dry that I elected to simply leave it out in the sun for the day.  I wiped every surface in that section and found little if any mold.  I washed the cover and hung it out to dry.  In the late afternoon I restored the area so that was more task off my list.

Unfortunately one of the V berth mattresses proved to have moisture in it even after 2 days out in the sun so I slept on the cabin settee one more night and today put the mattresses on deck for another day under the very hot sun.  For the third day the sail lockers were getting a good airing which was a very good thing.

I made a mistake in setting up the boat's electric cable yesterday afternoon rather than walking to the Food Lovers' Market.  When I reached the market at 5 PM it was closed.  This morning I walked back and it was still closed.  Never mind, because it was another beautiful sunny day and the walk around town would do me good.

I walked on the the V&A Waterfront hoping that the market that had been closed during my first visit would be open this Sunday morning, and so it was. I purchased a yummy looking roast beef roll for lunch and a loaf of pure rye bread.  I resisted the ice cream, pastry, chocolates, cheeses, etc and didn't purchase fruit because I still had a punnet of grapes, one mango, and one nectarine in the refrigerator.  For tonight I would have  a tall beer at the club overlooking the boats followed by dinner. I had seen their menu and it was good without trying to overreach.  Their prices are good and I noticed that wine is fairly cheap in SA.

Before leaving V&A I visited the marina and had a very good look for Vinny's boat, from above the marina and from walking two of the jetties.  He was not there so possibly he was allowed to stay at RCYC one more night.

After lunch and a short nap I decided to dedicate the rest of the afternoon to investigating the problem with the Jabsco marine head.  Fortunately it was clean both inside and out because it had not been used for months other than the occasional flushing to remove the stagnant sea water.  I had a choice between starting at the inlet thru hull fitting to ensure that there was no blockage and opening up the pumping mechanism, and fortunately I chose the latter.  The joker valve was in good order so I removed the top 6 screws and lifted the top cover and plunger.  I immediately saw that a hard piece of plastic was lying askew on top of the rubber piece that contained the two small valves.  The rubber and the valves looked good, but I couldn't figure out where to put the plastic piece.  It didn't make any sense because one of the valves had nothing to seal against.  I then removed the entire rubber piece and immediately saw the proper position of the plastic, and now the valve would be able to seal against it.

I could not see any way in which this could have happened during normal operation of the pump and concluded that I must have assembled it incorrectly many months earlier when I had put a service kit through it.  That would explain the feeble action on the upstrokes and my lack of confidence in the unit.  If that's the way it happened then I must have had a really, really bad day when I put the kit through it.

Anyway, the head seems to be performing normally, the rubber components all appear to be in good order, and the thru-hull fittings were cleared in Bracui; so there is hope that I will be able to use the head all of the way to Australia.

While working on the marine head I tried the radio one more time and finally found a rock station to my liking.  Life in Cape Town just kept getting better.




Although it was only 4.30 PM and the sun was still high I decided to call it a day because I had achieved my goal for the afternoon.  There would be a hot shower then a tall glass of beer overlooking the marina followed by dinner.  This was so much better than being pounded for hours in a gale.