Day 224, Year 9: Water, Water . . .
Date: Monday, June 2, 2014
Weather: Sunny and Warm, High Temp in the 70’s F
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
Water, water . . . so precious. According to the EPA, the average American family uses 300 gallons of water per day. By being super water conscience here on Windbird, we use only half that much water in a whole month. To be fair, there are only two of us, we don’t use ‘boat’ water for washing our clothes, and we use sea water for flushing our toilets. But still the comparison is stark. I use 3 gallons of water for a shower when I wash my hair and Mark averages 1.5 to 2 gallons of water for a shower. The average American with the ‘best of the best’ water saving shower head uses 1.5 gallons a minute when taking a shower! So we are super saving on the water use issue. When you are out here on a mooring with no ready supply of water, and when your watermaker is not working, water becomes quite precious. We have two 70-gallon water tanks and with careful water usage, we can go for a month without having to fill-up. But we have been here three weeks now and we switched to the second tank a few days ago. So it was definitely time to take action. Mark didn’t have to be at work until 11 am, so we got up, ate breakfast, had showers, and then released from the mooring and drove into the inner harbor to the Quissett Boat Yard dock to fill up with water and to wash down the boat. We are in the midst of the spring pollen season and everything on deck was quite yellow. The wash down did wonders. But a trip to the dock is always nerve wracking. I love this boat, partly because she feels indestructible like a tank. But that is the reason she is so hard to handle in tight spaces. She is HEAVY and steering in tight quarters is just hard. We came up to the dock just fine but then the wind blew us against the dock and we put a ‘little’ nick in one of the posts with our anchor. Everything was fine except for me. I was on the bow trying to fend us off, but just couldn’t fight the wind. When we finally tied up, my knees were shaking from the stress of little encounter with the dock. Sailing around the world is easy compared bringing Windbird to a dock for any reason. But now the water tanks are full and we shouldn’t have to brave this event for another month . . . and maybe not then if we can get the water maker working. This is one of the reasons why I love living aboard Windbird. It helps me feel like I am doing my part to save the resources of Planet Earth.
