Rub a dub dub

Rub a dub dub, how do we keep clean while living on a boat?  One might think we go weeks between bathing while others either never really thought about it or think we have an indoor shower and use it like we did on land.  Well, if the truth be told, the answer is ‘all of the above’ with the exception of using water like it’s going out of style.

While we do have a water maker on board and love, love, love it.  We do use water sparingly.  And when I say sparingly, I mean as little as humanly possible.  I think we use the most water when we do dishes, which is at least 3 times a day.  We can only store 100 gallons in our tank.  That may seem like a lot, but when you multiply dishes, drinking, showers and teeth times five, it adds up.  Craig is the water Nazi aboard Anything Goes.  He can hear the water pump a mile away and will yell out “that’s enough, who has the water running…..turn it OFF!”.  He has the uncanny ability to take a head count in 3 seconds flat to actually call that person by name.  Even after 7 months of his Hitler-like ways, there is still an occasional “that’s enoooouuuuugh!”. 

When it comes to keeping our bods clean, we have been known to go days without a shower, much to our dismay.  Most of the time it was inevitable, like on passage.  But when we do get a shower, we use the outside shower that is located on our starboard swim platform.  Which by the way has hot and cold controls in the event we have run the engines or water heater.  Usually it's a cold shower, which facilitates the length of the shower.  When we were in the cooler climate of the Northeast, we used the indoor shower.   Need I remind you about the frigid Maine water temperatures.  We don’t use the inside shower while in the warm Caribbean climate for a number of reasons:

1.) We can rinse off immediately after we get out of the water or dinghy (dirty and/or sandy feet).  This is very important because we want to keep the inside of the boat and towels salt and sand free.  Once they are salt laden, they are impossible to air dry down here. 

2.) We can rinse our goggles, snorkel gear, flip flops, swim suits etc. right away.  Salt is the enemy. 

3.) We can rinse the boat off as well.  Although we do not make it a habit to do this because the boat is big and the water tank is small.  We do use it wash off our enclosure glass after each and every trip at sea.  Again, to remove the salt.   We can usually count on a rain shower at some point during a 24 hour period, that helps keep the deck salt free.

4.) We don’t have to clean the bilge or sump pump, which is a nasty job.  For those unfamiliar with boat plumbing, the shower drains into a small sump in the bilge before being pumped overboard.  With 4 girls on board, that’s a lot of hair to potentially clog the drain.

5.) We use the shower for storage.  Upon leaving the US, we had so many provisions, I had to use the shower to store the overflow.  Then once we were in the warm tropical breeze, we no longer needed our long pants, fleece, or heavy blankets.  Into the shower they went!