Today we have had a no wind start of the day. Sir Francis Drake
Channel was flat. Sailors had everything out trying to catch any
breath of wind. This afternoon showers have popped up. Just
a
tropical shower! Happy sailing! From LH in East End.
From Dear Miss Mermaid:
And now with the rain squalls, you can strip to your skivvies, shower
yourself, shower the boat, and typically about the time you get both thoroughly
suds up, the rains stops.
Well, not really. Do everything in small batches, so if the shower turns
out to be one of our famous 3 minute deluges, you aren't caught off guard.
My old sailboat rarely saw a marina, but we liked to keep clean. I washed the
outside in small sections during rain squalls, until eventually, I got the
entire boat done.
About then, it was time to start over again, cleaning. Ever noticed how
having FUN attracts dirt? Funny how that happens...
My cockpit had this wonderful rubber grate. It looked gorgeous and felt
marvelous under bare feet. But pull it up to do a quick cleaning, and I would
shockingly find pandora's box hiding under there. Things like dirt, sand, hair,
fur, coins, crumbs, dead things, a loose screw, an errant washer, coffee grinds
and what-not.
I used to recycle the flimsy grocery bags into small garbage bags, so
everyday I had one or two small bags of garbage to go ashore. I often set them
in the cockpit while I was loading my backpack with purse, spare parts, shopping
list, dirty laundry and so on.
At that time, I made a lot of espresso in a stovetop Italian espresso pot,
so the garbage always had coffee grounds. Seems, these flimsy bags often had
small tiny holes too and the coffee grounds would find their way to hide
underneath the cockpit grate, only to horrify me at some point, when I went to
clean.
Ah life is tough on a boat.
