Neil asked: > > ...so is Pheonix having Thetforery??? It didn't even take a month then ;-))))
Of course not. In France there are no sani stations to empty a Thetford. There are very few pump-out facilities and I've never seen one working. AFAIAA there are only three on the Canal du Nivernais (for example); one at Auxerre, one at Clamecy and another at a newly- built, but unoccupied for well over a year, marina just south of Clamecy. Not one of these has ever been used to my knowledge. I'm told that it is a requirement that all new boating developments (such as marinas) have them but then they sit unused. In France it is just pumped overboard into the river or canal. On Brunel it was macerated and pumped out each time by the electric toilets. On Phoenix it will be macerated and pumped into a holding tank (which could be pumped out if there were, or eventually will be, the working facilities) but, in the meantime, will then be pumped from the holding tank overboard by a diaphragm pump while under way. I intend to do this frequently so that the individual trails are minimised but I have heard of those who do just one huge dump, whilst moored in a port would you believe, and add a brown pool and the resulting niff to the ambiance of the area ;-)) Another complication that is slowing the installation and operation of these pump out facilities is that much of rural France is on cess pit rather than mains sanitation and they don't want sudden large discharges into a cess pit system, even if you could find somewhere to empty your cassette or tank into that system. If you have a cassette system in France your best bet is to find a public aire de service that has facilities for motorhomes to dump their cassettes (there is one at Augy, on the Nivernais, for example, but that does often entail having a car at the ready to drive the cassettes to the dump point as not many aire de service are waterside like the one at Augy). Roger
