Oh poop!
While it’s a rather indelicate topic, properly disposing of human waste while on a boat is no laughing matter. Okay, you can giggle a little bit. Back when I was a boy on our sailboat, the marine toilet discharged directly overboard – gross and bad for the Sound! Today, we are much smarter and better at protecting our marine environment. All of Puget Sound is now a “no discharge zone,” so marine toilets flush their “black water” into an onboard holding tank. But when the tank is full, how do you empty it? Many big urban marinas have “pumpout” facilities on a dock that suck the contents of the blackwater tank and pump it into the local sewer system. Other large marinas have small pumpout boats that come directly to…