Where's Lizzy: Episode 7

The stench lingered the next morning. I was not about to let the odor become permanent crew, so my next line of defense would be paint. I had to remove the ‘holding tank’ in order to access the entire area that had been contaminated. The ‘holding tank’ stores raw sewage when in an anchorage or marina where you don’t want to flush straight into the water around you. It was something I’d been meaning to do anyway; being that the previous owner had sold me the boat with a surprise bonus—45 gallons of his very own sewage in the holding tank. The hole where the tank emptied was a flawed design; it hovered three inches up the side of the tank, making it impossible to ever thoroughly remove the contents of those last three inches. I’d been in the process of dilution ever since I bought the boat. After failing to coax stripped screws out of the piece of wood that lay across the top of the tank, I drilled them out and ripped off the wood. I disconnected the hoses leading to and from the tank, but then realized that I couldn’t lift it out without the 3” of poowater spilling. So, I dug out my hand pump and a bucket. I extracted that last 3” pump by awful pump. At one point the hose flew off the pump and sprayed poowater all over me and the floor. It was not pretty, nor was I at the end of that day. But I succeeded in emptying the tank and laying a fresh coat of primer in each of the forward lockers. Three days later the second coat of paint had dried, I had sealed the holes where I believed the water was sneaking in, thoroughly flushed the holding tank, fastened the wooden cleat back in place, and repacked the lockers—minus fifty or so pounds of canned food. Ants wandered throughout the boat now, diligently searching out their next party.

Rotten can extraction

Having tackled that beast of a project, I needed to surf. Jean Luc, a friend from another boat in the marina, was nice enough to let me use his car, so after stalling a dozen or so times (the old beast died every time the RPMs dropped to an idle) I pulled onto the main road and was off and running towards Boca Barranca. When I showed up the waves were barely shoulder high. A sloppy chop bounced across the milky brown water. A couple local kids rode up on bikes and we started talking.

“Es mejor allí,” the taller kid said, pointing south across the bay.

“Sí?” I responded, “Quieren ir?”

Without hesitation they stashed their bikes and loaded their boards. I knew where we were headed—I’d surfed there a few years prior, but the local boys would be good company and give me allies against thieves and creeps. So we drove around the bay, laughing every time the car died and exchanging names, ages, and stories. Jerry, was 20 with tall and lanky frame. What he lacked in girth he made up for in hair. The bushy puffs of his curly afro held the backwards hat high on his head. Weiner, freshly 17, was just a little taller than me with broad shoulders and a wiry build. They were your typical surf rats, so we had plenty to discuss about the local waves and conditions.

I caught my first glimpse of the spot as we crawled up a chain-link fence to shortcut the walk to the beach. It was twice the size of Barranca and sheltered from the wind. A small crowd sat where the swell bounced off the jetty and wedged into a hollow right peak. I hadn’t surfed much in over a month nor could I even swim at the marina, so despite floating trash and the muddy color, the water felt like a baptism. After a few chunky drops, I was back in my groove. Jerry paddled over and explained that there was going to be a local contest that afternoon. About an hour into our session, a group of older surfers arrived with a cooler of Imperials, an air-horn, and a stack of colored rash-guards. They called me out of the water and handed me the pink jersey. Honored at the invitation, I surfed two twenty minute heats against the local boys. In the second round, everyone was on the inside when a set wedged up in front of me. I swung around, got in early, and stalled. The lip fell over me and I pumped toward the light at the end. I didn’t make it out, but it was enough to earn the respect of the group on the jetty. Afterwards we toasted icy cold Imperials under the pastel swirls of the cloudy evening sky. Until one persistent guy repeated an invitation to dinner that I’d tried to ignore in the water, I almost forgot that I was the only girl among the group of 15-20 surfers. I politely, but firmly declined. Jerry and Weiner both shot him a glare at once.

When I made it back to the marina, I returned Jean Luc’s keys and excitedly launched into the story of my afternoon. Midway through my rambling I lost my balance in a wave of dizziness. My stomach rose suddenly into my throat, my limbs tingled, and a cold sweat beaded on my forehead and neck. I rushed up the steps and got just to the boat’s rail in time to projectile vomit off the side and onto the dock. Shocked, I hosed off the dock in the twilight and apologized to Jean Luc. I thought back on the day; in my rush to go surfing I’d literally eaten just a few crackers with peanut butter and a banana. What could have possibly made me so sick? Before I knew it, the feeling came again and I was curled over the wooden rail of the dock in the pouring rain. Jean Luc was brave enough to offer me his raincoat for the trip back to Swell. I made my way through the obstacle course in the cabin with a bucket and collapsed in a heap on the berth. Every ten minutes over the next few hours, my body would convulse and I’d violently purge a dribble of green bile into the bucket. When I thought there was no way anything could be left inside me, the ferocious sickness had me hunched over the edge, white-knuckling the pillow again. Aside from thinking I was going to die, the extreme low tide of the full moon emptied enough water from below Swell to have her laid over on her side in the mud, so for the second half the night I slept on the wall.

When I my eyes cracked open the next day the sun blazed high in the sky. I mustered the energy to lift my weak, sweaty body from the berth and teetered outside for some fresh air. I squinted into the brightness of midday and sipped some water. Jean Luc appeared in his dinghy to see how I was feeling.

 

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