Boat Life #1

On our recent trip home, quite a few people asked me questions about day-to-day life aboard Common Sense – what do we do about shopping, cooking, cleaning? How do we do the laundry and get rid of rubbish? What about showers and toilets? How do we get around? What do we do with all our stuff in such a small living space? So I figured it was time, while we are sitting here in Monastir for the winter, to try to capture a sense of this semi-nomadic lifestyle aboard a 42 ft (12.6 metre) sailing yacht.

So, keeping in mind that everything is more challenging than on land, let’s start with something relatively simple – laundry. We don’t have a washing machine so there are two options: hand-wash it or save it all up until you get to a marina or harbour. While we’re making a passage there isn’t really much point in changing your clothes unless you get horribly wet and miserable. You can hand-wash undies in a basin or bucket if you want/ need to, remembering that on a long passage, fresh water is precious and cannot be wasted. On parts of the Atlantic passage I was wearing so many layers that it was like an archaeological dig trying to go to the toilet – make that an archaeological dig during an earthquake – and clean clothes were the last thing on my mind. Once you’ve hand-washed things, they can be strung up colourfully on the various lines and halyards of the boat where they will be encrusted with salt spray, fine grit and rust stains before being blown overboard.

I prefer to save everything in a laundry bag until we arrive at a new marina or port. After solving the puzzle of how to check in with the Police, Harbour Control, Customs, Immigration and whoever else needs to know, the next challenge is to work out how to do the washing. In the USA, every little marina had a laundry with coin-operated washing machines and dryers, the prices and reliability of the machines varying somewhat from place to place. Many of the laundries also had book exchanges and other social amenities and were a good place to meet and chat with other boaters. In the Bahamas (where we wore far fewer clothes) it was a matter of asking around until you found the local Laundromat – typically operated by a large authoritative lady who managed quite efficiently considering the variability of the power supply in many places.

Marina laundries in Portugal were expensive – we found that a large load could be washed, dried and folded by a team of amiable local women for less than it cost to feed the marina machines with the necessary supply of tokens (which, inconveniently, had to be purchased from the office about half a kilometre away). In Morocco and Tunisia, we have had to track down local people who take in laundry. I always like to try to contribute a few Australian dollars to the local economy and it’s another way to meet folks other than our fellow cruisers. Like this lovely lady in Monastir, for example, who, as well as doing a fine job with the washing, patiently helps me to improve my French each week. Stay tuned for next week's exciting episode on creating culinary masterpieces in a two square metre  kitchen!