Nasty Business

There are two words that strike dread in the pit of every sailor's stomach. Sanitation Failure. That is to say, finding out part or parts of your toilet/holding tank have stopped doing what they are designed to do. We are feeling dread.
The last couple of days, I have noticed a slight odour de waste emanating from our rear cabin. Our head (bathroom) is adjacent to the cabin, and the holding tank resides below the bunk. The odor was faint, and it has been warm, so I didn't pay too much mind to it. This morning, Al and I removed the mattress, and cover-board to access the steering quadrant and install the rudder indicator there.
The smell was, shall I say rich?  We quickly checked the connection at the holding tank, tight and holding. We started to visually follow the hose back to the pump-out fitting and found a large suspicious bulge. Then we noticed, to put it politely, the ooze flowing forth of a certain brown shade.
Our hose was shot, ruined, kaput! Boys and Girls, can you spell retch?
Al and I locked eyes and uttered the only appropriate curse in unison.
There was only one thing to do and after setting fans up in what seemed like helpful places, we began the fix. First we had to let the tank drain, because the outlet connection is located (naturally) at the bottom of the tank. This involved a disposable container, a disposable wood plug, some smoke and mirrors (ok, not the last two) and teamwork.
Once the tank was drained, we had to cut the hose into pieces to easily get it out of the maze through which the builders decided would be fun to remove 22 years later, when said hose was as stiff as iron.
We measured it, then went to find replacement sanitation hose.
Now you would think that in a village which boasts over 2600 sailboats, that finding 1 1/2 inch waste hose would be a piece of cake. We needed a 15foot continuous run, so we are now waiting on new hose that should be delivered in the morning. We could have installed new hose today, if we had been willing to use high tech, nuclear meltdown proof, guaranteed to never leak, smell or bend to fit back into the boat hose. It was only $15.00 per foot. Ha. Ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha. We went with hose that costs $4.35 per foot. Our Sh8t don't stink. Or at least it won't after tomorrow, for a very long time.