Two of the things I miss during the winter cruising months
are ice cream and flush toilets. Certainly there are other things, but those
are kind of at the top of my “whoopee” list when I get back to land.
Now ice cream (and usually it is very good quality ice
cream) is available at Helado Stores all over Mexico. What I miss is being able
to have ice cream at hand in my place of residence. The freezer in the boat just
does not stay cold enough to keep the ice cream frozen. This was one of the
first lessons I learned when I bought the boat. The day I, and several of my
girlfriends, brought her from Astoria to Portland was predicted to be very hot
so we bought some yummy Haagen-Daz ice cream bars and put them in the freezer
for an afternoon treat. About halfway through the trip it was time to bring out
the ice cream and our mouths were watering. One bite into the chocolate coating
and we discovered that what we had was actually ice cream soup! Very sad.
Flush toilets are a real luxury on a boat. You can get them
but they are very expensive and use power (which there never seems to be enough
of) so most boats (ours included) have toilets that must be pumped by hand.
They work alright but it is sometimes a bit of a process to (How can I say this
delicately?) get everything to go down. First you flip the little lever up and
pump the handle to bring water into the toilet, then you flip it down to flush
everything out. Complicating the matter is that the hoses are a mere 1-1/2”. We
(as with most cruisers) keep a waste basket in each head and the rule on the
boat is, “If you didn’t eat it, don’t flush it.” I dream of someday having an
electric flush toilet but with a price tag of about $1,000 that is way down the
priority list.
Next on the “things I miss” list is being able to prepare
any meal without tearing the place apart to get the ingredients. Boats do not
have convenient cupboards like a house-on-dirt does. I have a few cabinets but
the majority of the food items go into large storage areas underneath or behind
the seats. This necessitates some sort of “filing system” in order to remember
where everything is. I have a great inventory on the computer but since that
requires the computer to be set up & turned on in order to view it I mostly
just “remember” where I put things. Actually, it’s easier than you would think.
Most of the canned foods and staples (flour, sugar, cooking oil, etc.) are
under the seat closest to the galley; pastas, marinades & salad dressings
are behind the aft seat; cake mixes, nuts, crackers and cereals are behind the
forward seat; etc. Still, in order to prepare a meal, the seating area around
the table must be taken apart to get the ingredients. The fridge is another
project all together. Most boat refrigeration units are top loading and the
bottom is the inside of the hull which gets deeper the closer it gets to the
middle of the boat. “Faith” is no exception. What that means for me is that I
can’t reach the bottom of the freezer section and everything slides to that
place. It also means that there is really no way to organize what is inside and
it is inevitable that ¾ of the contents will need to be removed and replaced in
order to make a sandwich.
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| Aft bunk |
Making beds on the boat is another interesting exercise.
Very few boats (the exception being power boats and some catamarans) have beds
that are not attached to the hull on at least one side. This means that in
order to make the bed you must be IN the bed. Also, the beds are NEVER a
standard size so normal bedding does not fit. The bed in our aft cabin (“captain’s
quarters”) is just under a queen width-wise but is almost 14’ long. I’ve had
special sheets made to fit it but blankets are all too short and too wide. When
it comes to making up the “V-berth”, which is in the pointy end of the boat, it
is hopeless.
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| V-berth |
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| Sunset at Bahia Algodones |
