We were in Bocas Del Toro and I accidently put 35 gallons of fresh water in the fuel tank. After all the Admirals loud comments on my stupidity calmed down I came up with a plan to get the water out. I zip tied a 1/2" clear tube to a dowel leaving the tube extending about a 1/2" past the end of the dowel and connected the other end of the tube to a Water Puppy pump and continuing to a Baja Filter that was in the mouth of a jerry can. I have a 2" cap in the top of the tank and put the tube into the tank and positioned it at the bottom of the tank. The water came out clear and clean as it was at the bottom of the tank. After filling 5 jerry cans with water it started coming out a bit milky and soon after (about 1 more tank) changed to what appeared to be good diesel. Chuck, the marina manager allowed me to put the water in one of the drums in the boatyard but it was so clean I could have put it directly in the water. (I tasted it and it was really pure water.)

I switched the exit hose from the jerry can to a 5 gallon white bucket and started doing a kind of liposuction thing pushing the end of the tube around the bottom of the tank. Junk started coming out and collecting in the Baja Filter leaving the fuel coming out the filter clean. I spent about an hour liposuctioning around the bottom of the tank until the debris stopped coming out and the hose seemed to slide around the bottom of the tank without catching on anything.

We started the engine up and never had a problem. When I screwed up with the water in the fuel tank we were about to leave for a short cruise of the area. We left the next day. All in all I was surprised at how easy it was to get water and all the junk out of the tank.