- Date: March 29, 1987
- Location: Cairns, Australia
- Subject: How not to waste water when living on a boat.
Dear Water Fairy:
I am used to living on land, in a house that has running water. It is so easy to take a shower, wash dishes, clean up and do laundry. I never really thought about water until I moved on board Sacha-B and had to pay attention to NOT WASTE THE WATER. I have heard the saying at least once a day, ok Mom and Capt… I get it. Today’s lesson is writing about the importance of being aware of water.
Sacha-B has two water tanks built into the hull. I have never seen them, but Capt told me they each hold 150 gallons of water, so we have 300 gallons of water. At first, I thought is was a huge amount of water, but it is really about two large bathtubs full of water. So we can’t waste a drop. Here are some of the things we do to conserve our water:
- We have two faucets in the galley sink. One faucet is fresh water, and one faucet pumps in salt water from the ocean. We use the saltwater to wash our vegetables and fruit, boil pasta and potatoes, and wash the dishes and clean out the sink. Once the dishes are washed in saltwater, we rinse them in a little bit of fresh water to get the salt of them.
- We each have our own special cup with our name on it, and use this cup all day long for drinking water. Mom also uses her cup to drink coffee, and Capt has his favorite cup to drink his tea. We only wash the cups at night with the supper dishes.
- We get to take a hot shower, every other day. We don’t have enough water to shower every day. We even shower differently on the boat, than how we did on land. No, we can’t just jump into the shower stall, turn on the water, and spend 10 minutes under the hot water. Our shower stall is actually the ENTIRE bathroom, or head. So, into the head I go, and pull the shower curtain all around the room, blocking the toilet off from the shower water. There is a special 16 oz cup (old ice cream container) we keep under the sink. I put the cup under the shower head and turn on the water. By the time the container is filled with water, the water is hot. I stand under the shower water just long enough to get wet, then shut the water off, maybe 30 seconds. I use the water in the container to soap myself up. Instead of using sudsy shampoo, I rinse a mixture of vinegar, water and squeeze of orange or lemon juice, through my hair. Using shampoo would create TOO many soapy bubbles, and it would take TOO much water to get out of my hair. When I am all done soaping up, I turn on the hot water and rinse me body and hair. I have exactly one minute, 60 seconds to rinse. I know when the time is up, because I have a timer on the wall. It sounds strict, but if we waste too much water, then we might only have a shower every week. Sometimes, if we are in port we will shower at the yacht club to save our water for when we are sailing.
- To brushing teeth your teeth, you put a little bit of water in a cup, stick your toothbrush in the water, brush teeth, rinse your mouth out with water in the cup, then rinse your toothbrush water left in the cup.
We usually fill up the water tanks when we pull up to the wharf, if we are in a port. If we know it is going to rain, make sure the shade awning is out and arranged so it collect the rainwater. There are special hoses in the middle of the awning, which we put into the water tanks, so the rain drains into the tanks. We also put out every clean bucket, pot, pan and tub we have to collect the rain. Most sailboats our size do not carry the amount of water we do, so that gives Capt another reason to be proud of his old girl Sacha-B.
If it has rained a bunch, sometimes we scoop the water from the dinghy and pour it into the funnel, and down it goes into the water tanks. We just finished the rain season in Cairns which is November through March. The good news is it does not rain everyday, but the bad news is we could run low on water quicker.
Today, Capt came home with a “surprise”. Sometimes that is a good thing, sometimes that is a great thing, and sometimes that is a bad thing. This surprise was a great thing. He brought home a brand new, cute propane gas BBQ grill. It looks like a metal ball split in half, so the top cover lifts up. He has already attached it to the aft rail and hooked up the hose to the propane tank in the steering well. Mom was very pleased because this means we will be able to cook outside and keep this boat cooler. Capt also brought home some steaks-to try out his new toy, though he is not much of a cook. Mom made mashed potatoes in the galley and some herb butter for the steaks. YUM-YUM. Don’t get used to this, says Mom, steaks will be far and few between once we start cruising.
After dinner, Capt and I played a few games of Backgammon. We started a tournament. At the moment, he is winning 3 games to my 2 games. We are going to play until the first person wins 100 games, and the winner has to take the loser out for fancy pastry. Hope I win before we leave Cairns, because I don’t think there will be many bakeries in Papua New Guinea. I wanted to buy a backgammon set at the store, but Mom said, “we can make that”. She said I have to start looking for ways to get what I want by being resourceful, using what we have on the boat, instead of going out and spending money on things. Every dollar we do not spend is a dollar that goes into our cruising fund. So, our backgammon game is homemade. Capt got me two pieces of wood, each 12 inches by 18 inches, and I copied the backgammon pattern of the board from a game that Melinda let me borrow. I had to tape the triangles out and paint some of them white and some of them blue. There are 6 triangles on each side of both pieces of wood. Mom had some old poker chips hanging around so we are using 15 black poker chips and 15 yellow poker chips. We bought the dice from Coles. Capt attached 2 tiny brass hinges on the board face, so the boards can be folded up and put away. Mom says backgammon, cribbage and canasta are all good games for me because they have a lot of math in them and lots of strategic thinking. Sometimes, I still have to count on my fingers, I have trouble adding numbers in my head, but the more I play, the better I get.
Off to bed and my book.
