"Lave sus manos, or not."

                      Living on dry land I took having fresh water for granted.  At the dinner where I worked, I was the hand washing Nazi, running around the kitchen yelling, "Lave sus manos!"  Living on a boat, surrounded by salt water, it's more, "I can wait another day to shower."  When you don't always know where the next fresh water fill up is, every drop counts.  So we work on the three C's, conserving, collecting, and consumption.

                       Conserving was the hardest to get use to, back home I never had to think about the amount of water coming out of the faucet.  We can store almost 200 gallons of fresh water on board.  Sometimes we can substitute salt water for everyday uses.  It is very good for getting dirt out of clothes, add a little pure vanilla extract to take out the fish smell and they've never been cleaner.  Lemon Joy is one of the best things ever, and one of few cheap soaps that suds in salt water.  We use it for dishes, salt water to wash, then fresh to rinse, cleaning the deck, and ourselves.  Also the lemony smell helps a little with the mosquitos.  Rainstorms are our friends, I like to soap up the deck when I know ones coming than let mother nature give it a rinse.

                        Rainstorms are also our chance to collect fresh water.  At first I had every bucket tied off to the railings.  It was like the roof top scene in "28 Days Later", and working about as well.  So we built a rain-catcher, and put up gutters on the side of our cockpit hardtop.  Sometimes there's a big spot of bird poop on the rain-catcher, we put that water in a special jug.  Fortunately we haven't need to use it yet, but that's why we have boiling pots, and filters.

                         Overall the best thing we do is just limit our consumption.  Only one teapot in the morning for both, coffee, and oatmeal.  We wear the same clothes for a few days in a row, and showers are reserved for going to shore.  When your just on the boat as long as your partner doesn't think you smell, who cares.  A few drops is all you need to brush your teeth, wash your face, and a half of cup to shave, we're not total "Hippies", yet.  Most important I've learned to bite my tongue, instead of yelling "Lave sus manos!", when my man's making dinner.  I do have a spray bottle handy, my bleach, borax, and vinegar mix, to clean up with after.