No place to poop
The effort continues to keep the Salish Sea clean. (Photo by Bill Carpenter)
His classic plastic yawl, with the coolest twin hammocks in which anyone has ever hung lazing in the sun, might never again venture south into Puget Sound or make a beam reach across Haro Strait to the San Juans.
“Darn”, said Maurice, or a PG-13 translation of what he actually said, adding he loved the anchorages, the state parks and their hiking trails, the friendly marina communities that have formed around the charming seaside towns. He failed to add the lower taxes on alcohol, of which we know he is also fond.
And now it was over, no longer could he overnight in US waters.
While Maurice and his yawl were not actually named in the move by the politicians in Olympia to ban direct discharge into Puget Sound, the implications hit him directly between the eyes.
It’s not that he doesn’t have a holding tank. He does, a beauty, from the finest quality stainless steel, filled gloriously from the fanciest commode ever birthed by Raritan.
It’s his wife, Giselle. She has a thing about poop. She can’t eat or sleep knowing it is sloshing about nearby. When Giselle first started boating she cringed and plugged her ears when the pumpout man happily announced he was “down to the gravy”.
Maurice and Giselle are liveaboards. On the move aboard some years ago, Giselle made only two demands. First, male or female, there is no standing. All those partaking in the joys of the head must be seated. You never know, even at the dock, when a rogue wave might catch a reliever unaware and cause him to douse the lovely scented candles with which she decorates the head.
Second, when tied to the dock, all crew and visitors must use the facilities ashore. Giselle is sure that allowing poop to slosh around in her holding tank is asking for hoses to explode and for the poop to spread helter skelter in the bilge where it will ferment for years and years.
Away from the dock, Giselle insists on direct discharge.
Her poop ban went into effect long before a single Washington state legislator had furrowed a brow to contemplate where mariners might relieve themselves.
Maurice showed me a brochure he had picked up for a composting toilet. It only made him sadder. He had suggested one to Giselle, saying there is nothing cleaner, nothing better for the environment. There are no hoses to explode. It just turns into dirt.
Giselle looked at him with those eyes, then sternly said she didn’t want to live next to rotting poop, didn’t want to stir it, didn’t want carry around tubs of the liquid waste and bags of “dirt”.
My best suggestion was for Maurice try to stay in marinas with facilities. When in an anchorage, use a porta-potty. Maybe that would be okay if Maurice promised Giselle that it would be his job to tend to the porta-potty, come hell or big waves.
Little danger of the porta-potty exploding. Just don’t trip over it.
Maurice shrugged. “What I need is an invention.”
He sighed and passed me another beer.
