A Bladder Cleanser sounds like a special cranberry juice drink. But really, the job isn't over until the hand-washing afterwords.

Yes this is a picture of soapy water in the galley sink.

We put a little dish soap in the tank. Ran in some water. And now we're pumping the soapy water out.

We'll keep adding water until it runs out clear.

Then we'll sanitize with a half ounce of chlorine bleach in about 10 gallons of water. Let that stand for a few hours while we bend on the mains'l.

Then.

We'll have a working water system. Barely 50 gallons of water, but that's better than what we have now, which is a three-gallon bucket with a nice lid and a spigot.

We can move on to the next two water-related jobs

• Clean the starboard tank. This is fairly quick. We expect it's a rinse and then vacuum out the detritus.

• Rebuild the leaking port tank. This will take days and days and days. I hope I can get the aluminum top off. Scott and Jeanie on Joie de Vivre did it, so I know it can be done.

We were overjoyed to open the deck fill and put water in and have it come out the galley sink. Just like it's supposed to. We're happy to have recovered the volume under the V-berth for water, also.

Now that my bladder is empty, I can wash my hands in the sink. A huge milestone.