June 1st, 2011 is a landmark for our life aboard Mahdee.  No more accidental feeding the bilge monster!  Well, at least not in the galley or main saloon areas.  Since those areas are where we usually drop things that can feed the bilge monster, June 1st may become a “ship’s holiday” for Mahdee.  In the stateroom, items dropped include socks and t-shirts.  These things rarely wiggle their way into the bilge, though.

Some of you may recall that the ship’s cat, Beamer, was certain that we had a monster in the bilge and would alternately growl bravely and mew pitifully when we opened up the sole to put something into the bilge or to clean the bilge.  David and I have had “other” issues with the bilge monster.  Mainly our issue is that the monster is like the Pied Piper of Hamelin; any small item dropped onto the sole would quickly bounce and roll until it found its way into the bilge through one of numerous spaces adjacent the sole.  These spaces awaited the installation of the boat’s furniture or ceiling between furniture and the sole and really couldn’t easily be closed up until the installs were done.

Here’s the problem: Once a small item has landed in the bilge, we can spend amazing time trying to find the particular item.  Even though we know exactly where we saw the last “bounce” that doesn’t mean that the item found its way into a nearby frame bay.  If anything, the Pied Piper of the Bilge is also a cousin of the sorcerer Merlin in that tiny items can disappear into one frame bay and impossibly re-appear two bays in the opposite direction of the more logical “downhill” gravity draw.  With only a limber hole and a small bit of space above each frame/floor in the bay, this is actually quite a feat of movement.  It also supports Beamer’s theory of the existence of the bilge monster in the first place.

The bilge is pretty empty in the area back by the engine since this is the “low spot” and usually has a little bit of water in it.  Forward of that area we have plastic bags and boxes of stove coal, canned goods, bottled water, plastic bins of engine oil, and further forward still, a treasure trove of hardwood for the stove.  It is difficult to find things when one must remove all this “stuff” normally stored in the bilge to find the dropped item.

Because of the time commitment required to find some things once they’ve been hustled into the bilge, we went into a decision tree process; the first node is always “Is the item valuable or needed immediately?”  Examples of such items that have been sucked into the bilge include my diamond wedding ring and bronze screws that were being installed when they hustled down under.  If the answer is “no” the next node will be “is the item ferrous or something that can be damaged by salt water or degrade in some way?”  These things commonly make their way into the bilge and must be retrieved immediately before problems arise; examples are bits of onion that fly off my cutting board and small pieces of rigging wire from a rigging project.  If the answer is “no” the next node will be “When we do need it, will we forget that it is down there?”  For this one, David’s answer is typically “yes, I will forget” and mine is “no, I won’t forget” so whether an immediate retrieval is made depends on who is likely to need the item first! There are other things to consider, of course, like whether the item will clog the bilge pump filter and so forth.  The most  common things which are “left” in the bilge for retrieval during more routine cleaning are plastic caps–such as those from Almond Milk boxes–and really large items that aren’t immediately needed and will be easy to see once we open the sole and take a look–an example is my plastic spatula that, amazingly, has made its way to visit the bilge more than once.

Well, no more! On June 1st, David sealed up the last bit of sole and ceiling in the main saloon and galley so that the bilge monster is will have to go elsewhere for satisfaction.