Salty Water
All around in every direction.
For rinsing dishes when at sea or in a clean anchorage
Splashing up through the drain holes in the pilot house as we travel with the swell and chop.
Fresh water
Like going to a well with a jar, I have a Tupperware pitcher that just fits into the hole of the water tank. Dip in, fill the 1-gallon jug. Two pitchers’ full equals one gallon. One full sink of dishes typically takes 1.5 gallons of water to wash. Rinse with Ocean water, wash with hot fresh, rinse with cold fresh. Don’t bother with suds left on the bottom of dishes, rinsing them off would use more precious water.
The handmade custom fabric covers on the water tanks are to keep out UV light and minimize algae growth. Remind me of Kristin and Joann and their sewing day. They invited Eloise to join in as they designed and sewed those 3 covers. And Joann ordered 4 or 5 pizzas to keep the sewing party going into the evening.
Which tank tastes the best for drinking? Use that one for drinking cold water; use all the rest for cleaning because it tastes a bit like plastic or residual algae (from before the covers were made), despite thorough cleaning. Cover up the taste by using lime powder or making tea.
Boil water in the kettle if I want hot for cleaning or putting in our solar shower bag.
Ways to Obtain fresh water: shuttle jugs in the dinghy to dock and back; or use hoses from a dock straight into our tank; or as in Ensenada…
The dock water in Ensenada was not potable. So, the harbor provided a water dispenser akin to the grocery store style in the States. A few exceptions. This one took peso coins only. I had no peso coins. I went to town to find an ATM that dispensed peso bills (most of them dispense US dollars). Then I attempted to use these bills in town to obtain peso coins in the correct denominations. The young women in the harbor office claimed I could trade my bills in for coins with them, but when I went to do so, they said they had to wait for someone to arrive at work before they were able to give me coins for bills. Thus began much borrowing, asking, trading of bills with other sailors. The woman who cleaned the bathrooms patiently explained in Spanish that the other snack vending machine would give coins if you inserted a 20 peso bill and then push the button. Insider knowledge is helpful! Once coins were gathered, I approached the machine with blue 5-gallon water jugs. The machine unpredictably worked or didn’t work after receiving my hard-won coins. To start, I had enough coins to purchase 9 refills, and ended up only carting 6 refills from land down to the dock about a quarter mile away. But it felt like enough, given that we have ocean water for a lot of cleaning. If we get in a pinch, there’s that brand new water maker sitting in boxes on the deck, waiting to be installed.
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