Heatwave and a poo tank

Thur 22nd to Fri 23rd June - Sweltering in Gouda

We'd had poo tank issues back in Calais as was recorded earlier in this blog. Howard had discovered a leak and had decommissioned the tank pending repairs. He needed to insert a through-hull type fitting into the bottom of the tank to replace the plastic spigot which had failed. With this in mind he'd had a 48mm hole saw delivered to Ostend by friends but had put off the work until Gouda where Rik has his boatyard. I don't think he dreamt he'd be doing this crappy job in such a heat – 30 degrees plus is hardly ideal for working below deck on plumbing, and dirty plumbing at that.

That's the poo tank, extracted and out on deck

Forepeak where poo tank sits behind the wooden "bits" - all shelving dismantled to get it out...

...and all the usual contents of the forepeak stacked up in the saloon

In case you thought I was just lounging about in the sunshine while he did this – well you wouldn't be far wrong really, though I did have some OGA work to do and other correspondence to catch up on. All this took a couple of days: Rik and Edith must have wondered why we didn't take a little boat out sailing on the lakes as we have done before or really show much sign of relaxing, but we were enormously grateful for their hospitality, their tables (inside for laptop and coffee, and outside for dinner), their WiFi, their washing machine and washing line, Rik's workshop, his stock of plumbing parts and his able assistance. They both joined us for supper on board Bonify on Thursday and on Friday morning we were able to wave Edith off on a 55km row before starting our tidying up process.

Edith (left) and her team setting off on a 55km row - lucky it's cooler today

At the mercifully cooler end of another hot day we cast off, passed through a lifting bridge, the Juliana lock, and then the massive Gouda railway bridges on one of the rare opportunities scheduled for that, and tied up for the night under the trees just beyond, ready to move on.


Traffic at the Spoorbrug Goude

Close-up shows the skipper's a gaffer at heart! Also note the minion on the "stalk" of his lifting/lowering bridge



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