Peeing in a Bucket

Word on the marina was that the pump out was broken. It had been a good two weeks since we pumped out, but when we heard the news from Stan on Sunday, we didn’t take it too seriously. J---, another boater, had tried to pump out to no avail. “Too bad, ‘cause he’s full, too,” Stan said. We agreed. Too bad. And we went on our way.

Monday, we noticed some overflow in the bilge. Probably from the condensation that had formed ice inside the boat and was now melting. It wasn’t very dark. But by evening, it was dark. And smelly. And Tuesday morning, the toilet was resisting when we tried to flush it. Yep – time to pump out.

If pump out was a two-person job before, it’s now even more complicated. While Mark stands on one side of the marina, separated from our boat by water, I toss him one end of a yellow rope, which he ties to the pump out hose, and I drag across the marina to our side. It just reaches the opening to our tank, and I attach it tightly while Mark flips the switch. We communicate by yelling across the marina; if it’s windy, we use cell phones.

But it was still questionable whether the pump out was working. After shoveling a foot of blowing snow off our deck, I tromped over across the marina to the pump out, which was duct-taped and had a sign: “Out of Order Management Called.” When Mark came home, he thought he could still get it to work; he couldn’t. We had a full tank, a nonfunctioning pump out, and a snowstorm so bad that they were canceling university classes.

Mark made some calls. The other boaters all said the same thing. “I’m peeing in a bucket.” He called Captain P---, president of the condo association and supposed marina management. Captain P--- said he outsourced the marina management to a great company – but they’re on vacation for three weeks. He didn’t seem very eager to do anything to help the situation. The hose was probably frozen – just gotta wait till it thaws out. And the fact that temperatures were supposed to drop below zero for the next week? Captain P--- shrugged over the phone. “I’m peeing in a bucket.”

Mark relayed all this to me after he hung up the phone.

I repeated it to make sure I understood. “You mean the condo association president is peeing in a bucket ‘cause he outsourced the job of fixing things and the company he outsourced to is on vacation?”

Mark confirmed this was true. “The entire marina is peeing in a bucket."

We did this before, you know. We went without water when the boat froze, and peed in a bucket, and came up with an ingenious design of a plastic bag in the toilet to catch our solid waste, which we promptly threw out in the same dumpster beside the rats. It’s not like this is new or anything.

“I don’t want to pee in a bucket,” Mark said. “It’s the principle of the thing.”

I asked him if he could just leak the waste into the water. “I’d do it if we were out on the lake, but I don’t want to do it in the marina.”

We discussed the options. There weren’t many. Mark got a scary look in his eye. “How about we just get a shop vac and suck it out? I won’t throw it in the marina, but I’d throw it in the river.”

“Maybe you should sleep on this idea,” I suggested.

Our sewage tank holds 50 gallons. “If we had a 10-gallon shop vac, it’d be ten times flushing it out,” Mark said. “If we had a 20-gallon shop vac, that’d be half of it. You don’t like this idea, do you? C’mon baby, where’s your sense of humor?” But I know he’s not kidding. “Trying to be self-sufficient, too, you know?”

“You don’t have any problems emptying 50 gallons of sewage into the river?” I asked him.

“Hey, it was your idea,” he said, “But I am a member of Friends of the River. I took an oath and all…”

So we're peeing in a bucket. And finding toilets in restaurants, libraries, and office buildings as often as possible. Who knows when this problem will be solved. The trickiest part is, nobody really knows who’s managing the River City marina. River City? The condo association? Captain Pee? Some mysterious outsourced company in India?

The best thing about living on a boat, you’re under the radar. The worst thing about living on a boat? Still under the radar. Just remember to bring your bucket.