Water, water everywhere and nary a drop to drink

(or, how we make do on 110 gallons of water)

When I last looked at our water bill in California, we averaged 80 (gasp!) gallons a day.  My only excuse is that we had put in new sod and were trying to make sure it lived.  

Now that we live on a boat surrounded by salt water, our 110 gallon fresh-water tank is very precious to us.  Not as in "my precious, my precious", but nearly so.  Along with the big tank, we carry 20 more gallons in jerry cans and have about 3 more in bottled water.  We can easily last 8 or 9 days on that water, but want to eek out more time so we can enjoy anchorages longer.

Some cruisers have "watermakers": desalinators that are great when they are in good repair.  Since we did not plan to cross either puddle (Atlantic or Pacific), we opted not to install one of these devices.  Another reason we didn't install one is that it does take room and does require a generator or the motor to be running since it is quite power intensive.  It does mean we need to meter our use.

So, how do we do it?  We bought a garden sprayer (for insecticide/herbicide) from our local hardware store.  This bottle holds two gallons of water that can then be hand pressurized.  We typically use this after a swim and it only takes about a gallon for a person to rinse well (and that includes a shampoo and soap wash).  We set the bottle in the sun to warm up, too.  When doing dishes, we pour about a gallon of sea water into one of the galley sinks to scrub and scrape the dishes, pots and silverware.  Once everything is clean as can be with the salt water, we wash in just a little bit of soapy water and rinse it clear.  Our toilet pulls in salt water, too.  That way, we don't have to waste fresh water flushing something that isn't fresh into the holding tanks.

Cleaning the dishes well with sea water first is a new thing - I am hopeful that it allows us to last closer to two weeks on our tank.  

Someone asked me what we do about laundry.  When at a marina, I find the closest laundromat.  We have had some laundry done because it is pretty cheap to do so and sometimes the only option.  However, the young people in our family need responsibilities and I'd rather save the money.  If, while underway, we need something washed, we have a means for that, too.  We bought a special plunger for hand washing clothes.  I plunge the clothes in a 5 gallon bucket once in salt water with soap, one time in just salt water and finally in fresh water once or twice to remove all the salt water.  The plunger works really well: I have a perverse satisfaction watching dirt removed from clothes simply by the physical action of plunging.  The device creates enough suction to pull the water through the clothes well.  But as I said, this is for items that cannot wait for a laundromat.

So while we're not exactly camping, life is not as luxurious as it was in our house.  I need to question whether and why higher water usage equates to better life.  No one on the boat is hungry or thirsty or unhappy.  We are blessed.