Adventures of a Tribe

What’s a head?!

Posted on November 10, 2015 Updated on November 10, 2015

It started out as a beautiful, warm Panama day, with green parrots chattering overhead against gorgeous blue skies. Everyone rested well and thought they were ready for whatever adventures the day brought.

Until….

Jude and Emma mentioned yesterday that their head was leaking, and Danny’s and my head seemed to have lost power to its flush, so we thought we’d ‘quickly’ take a peak. For those who haven’t learned the sailor lingo yet, the Head, is the toilet. Danny and I are both firm believers that everyone on the boat needs to know how to fix and run everything, so we explained to Jude how to remove her head from its base, and while Danny took care of some business, I started on ours. It’s never a pleasant job, but I am able to keep my mind focused on my happy place when I engage in such projects, and today was no different. Jude on the other hand, was completely grossed out and overwhelmed by the odor and sights at hand. Once we had reached the point in our projects where our limited knowledge could take us no further, we called Danny to the rescue, and suddenly things became very ugly!

Danny has a head full of knowledge when it comes to heads, and gave us a heads up that things might come to a head once he removed the hose that heads up to the holding tank. (sorry, I couldn’t resist)  And oh my goodness was he correct. When salt water and urine become friends, weird things happen, and our heads happen to flush with salt water…so all sorts of ridiculous and obscene things have been taking place in these hoses. Both of them had fossilized urine/salt water construction zones firmly erected to the point that only a small trickle of sunshine could get through.

Danny took Jude and Emmas hose out to the dock and proceeded to do what resembled a tribal dance with it, swinging it around over his head, sending chunks of urine rock in every direction. Jude quickly suggested that perhaps a different approach should be taken, so he knocked the hose against the dock and a smorgasbord of yellow rocks came tumbling out. If he’d been panning for gold we’d be millionaires. He flushed water though until it ran clear enough to drink (which we didn’t do) and then reinstalled it in the head. When Danny flushed I heard him and Jude exclaim in joy and wonder as the toilet worked better and faster than it ever has. Danny immediately came over to our side to repeat the process with our hose and I had to first pry him away to make him wash his hands and feed him lunch and make him drink a bunch before he continued. This became an entire day project, and the comments coming from Jude had me rolling on the floor with laughter. She’d exclaim that there is absolutely nothing right about this situation and how she couldn’t even begin to explain to someone what kind of day she’d had. Both her and Emma now had a new respect for their head. It’s obvious that the people who owned this boat before us, had never flushed out those hoses! Mycah and Skyler’s head as well as Jonathan and Aidan’s, are next. They told us no problem, they are ready. Huh! Just wait!

While all the mess was going on, Emma went to use Mycah and Skylers bathroom and joked that she was about to pee on Mycah’s head. Goofy boat bathroom humor!

When all the bad stuff was over, Danny jumped in the shower, but Jude felt like no shower would ever get her clean, so her and Mycah went to the beach so Jude could be thrown around in the waves for a while, and then she showered and finally felt clean. In the mean time, I prepared a tasty meal to try make up for today’s adventure, and as always, good food did the trick.

Tanda Malaika now has beautifully clean hoses running from her aft heads and her skippers are clean and well fed. It’s been a good day.