Hazmat

You’ve seen the dawn commercial.  You know the one.  Baby duck covered in oil, being held by a volunteer and gently cleaned with dawn soap. It’s a real tear jerker and makes you want to run out and buy some soap and save the planet.  It is what I think about every time I fill up Twig’s diesel tanks.  Each time we top off, we face the real risk of creating a baby duck situation with our own little micro oil spill.

Oh how I long for the days when I could just drive to the gas station, insert the handle and hang out and wait for the click that shuts off the flow.  You really don’t know how convenient that click is until it’s gone.  I don’t know if it’s the fault of our boat, or of the fuel docks, but we don’t have a click.   On a boat, at least on our boat,  if you’ve kept filling till the click, you’ve got a hazmat situation.   The click means you’ve overfilled and there’s diesel everywhere, and diesel in the water is a very bad thing.  We have a whoosh.   The whoosh comes right after “just a little more” and immediately precedes pissed off ducklings.  

I thought Captain Jim was hazing me when he told me about the whoosh.

Jim:  So, the click doesn’t really work on these boats, so you have to put your head down there and listen to the sound.

Greg:  haha

Jim:  No, really.  When it’s filling up, it’s like a roar, then it starts to sound like a gurgle as the air pocket gets pushed out.  Then there’s a whoosh.

Me:  Then what?

Jim:  Dead ducks and huge fines

Hmm.  This sounds serious.  I was a little bit worried, but that first fill up with Jim went off without a hitch, so I put it in the back of my mind.

Then we filled up the second time, on our own.  Here’s a little play for your enjoyment.  

Hazmat

By Greg

Scene  

A serene March day in Daytona Beach Florida.  The sailing catamaran Twig is attempting their first solo fill up.  The family dog Zulu is on the deck smelling the breeze, and the three children are reading on their kindles.

Act 1:  FInding the dock

Meredith:  The fuel dock is over there, about 500 yards.   

Greg:  Nice, let’s just pop over for a fill up before heading out

Meredith:  It’s shallow, so we can’t go straight there.  We have to follow the river about 3 miles.  Should be about 30 minutes

Greg:  Oh

After several “just around the bend”’s, the heroes finally get to the correct bend.

Meredith:  There it is!  But don’t go straight.  There’s a huge shoal on the map.  You have to go past it and loop back.

Greg:  Oh

Greg (on channel 16):  Fuel dock, Fuel dock, Fuel dock, this is Twig

Fuel dock:  Twig, this is Fuel dock.  Switch to Six Eight

Greg (on channel 68):  Fuel dock, this is Twig

Fuel dock:  Good morning Twig, how can I help

Greg:  We could use a little gas.  We’re pulling into the channel.

Fuel Dock:  Gas?  Don’t you mean diesel?

Greg:  Oh right.  Diesel.

Fuel Dock (off mic):  moron

Fuel Dock:  Roger that.  We’re just past the first set of docks that you see, near the restaurant, but before the next inlet.  It’s a Port side pull up in a heavy current.  Everybody in the restaurant will come out to watch you try to dock and laugh at you.  Some will make bets.  

Greg:  Roger that.

Greg (to Meredith):  I didn’t catch any of that.  I’m sure it’ll work out fine.

Narrator:  It did not work out fine.   The current was strong, and Twig missed the dock trying to figure out which one it was.  They had to do a 180 and come at the dock again, this time against the current.  The restaurant patrons grab their drinks and head to the restaurant deck to watch the show.  Discouraged and a little embarrassed, they finally tie up to the dock.

Act 2: The fuel dock

Dock lady:  Where is the tank?

Greg:  Well, there are two, both in the back

Dock lady:  Ok, how much do you need?

Greg:  chuckle.   I have no idea.  The starboard tank shows about ¾ full, but I’m not really sure how big it is.  The port fuel gauge is totally broken.

Dock lady:  Um.  K.

Dock lady (to self):  Great.  More morons that thought it would be a great idea to buy a boat.

Dock lady hands Greg the nozzle, wrapped up inside an oil absorbent pad like a diaper.  Greg pulls the bundle over to the fuel port like it’s a baby about to have a blow out.

Greg:  Golly, I forgot the wench handle.   Meredith!  Can you grab me the handle from the helm so I can open the cap?

Narrator:  Eventually, Greg gets the cap off and lies face down on the deck next to the fuel port.  He squeezes off a little, puts his head next to the nozzle and then listens.

Greg:  Sorry, this is what I was told to do.  I’m listening for the change in sound.

Fuel lady:  No worries, better safe than sorry!

Fuel lady shakes head and says to self:  moron.

Fuel tank:  Whoosh!

Greg:  Crap!

Narrator:  After wiping the diesel off of the deck of the boat, Greg moves over to the Port side to repeat the process.

Greg:  How much was that?

Fuel lady:  about 25 gallons.

Greg:  Ok, since there’s no working gauge on the port side, we’ll just do the same over here.

Fuel lady:  Sounds good!

Fuel lady (to self):  moron.

Narrator:  Greg repeats the same procedure.  He lies on the ground near the fuel port, with his head up close.  After about four minutes, diesel fuel starts shooting all over his face.

Greg:  WTF!   Where’s the whoosh!  How many gallons was that?

Fuel lady:  about 24.

Greg:  Sigh.  Oh well, I guess we know for next time.  That side takes a little less.

Meredith:  Greg!  The whole boat smells like diesel!

Greg:  Oh yeah, the delivery captain said that happened when they filled up too.  I thought they fixed it, but I guess not.  Add it to the todo list.

Fuel lady (out loud):  moron.

The End

The play is over, but the dance had just begun.  Over the next few months, we learned a few more valuable lessons:

Lesson 1:  Diesel is oil.  Not only does this matter to the baby ducklings, but it also means that it doesn’t really evaporate like gas does.   So, the overflow that made the boat smell meant that the bilge was full of diesel.  If you don’t know, the bilge is a hollow area under the floorboards.  It runs the length of the boat, and is meant to catch fluids to pump overboard.  Left unattended, the diesel created a foul smelling black gelatinous mass that needed to be hand scooped out.  This bilge also houses the air intake for the air conditioner, so until the mess was cleaned up, the boat reeked anew each time the air was run.

Lesson 2:  The generator runs off the port tank.  So, if we use the generator to run the AC, we can no longer count on the “the port tank tanks a little less” theory.  The good news is that we can now fill the port side with the same amount as the starboard sid  without risking an overflow.   The bad news is that means with our port tank we have absolutely no clue how much fuel is in it, and can only count on it having what we added at the last fill up.  The boat has a button that allegedly transfers fuel between the two tanks to overcome this, but I’m honestly terrified to press it.  Maybe they shouldn’t have made it a big red button that resembles every “launch” button I’ve ever seen in war movies.  Swell.

Side note: as luck would have it, the generator is currently broken, so this hasn’t been an issue lately.  Small blessings.  Unless it’s 90 degrees with 90 percent humidity and we need the air conditioner.  Which it is.  And we do. Also, if you read this far, you must be enjoying the post. Please consider clicking here and buying us a gallon of diesel.

Lesson 3:  Parts for the boat are hard to get.  I ordered the part to fix the port fuel gauge months ago on Amazon and had it sent to a friend’s house so they could get it to us.  It never arrived, and the seller refused to believe it and went as far as to accuse us of theft.  We had to get a refund directly from Amazon.  More importantly, it meant that we didn’t get the part.   Nobody else seemed to have exactly what we needed.  I would forget about it for a while, and then look again after going through the motions each fill up.  I finally found it on another site, and had it delivered to our packaging forwarding service.  In a couple weeks we will be in Washington DC, and I can have it forwarded to us there.  Hopefully that fixes that gauge, after 6 months of dancing the “no idea what’s in the port tank” dance.

So, that’s what it’s like to fill up the tanks on Twig.  It’s hit or miss at best, but we’re getting there.  Right now it’s a beautiful morning in Hampton, VA and we are going to head over to the fuel dock before heading out.  Wish us luck.   Oh, we’re also going to empty the holding tanks (poop doody), which is a whole other story….