Chore Day
Let everyone think that vacationing for a year is, well, a picnic..........there are chores to be done; some of which land-based people take for granted. Of first importance is of course, water. On land, when you turn on the tap, out comes water. On a boat, water is precious. You don't waste it. But even the most miserly of cruisers eventually run out of water. Our 1,000 liter water tank is huge, but the real luxury our boat possesses is a high capacity reverse-osmosis watermaker. We can make fresh water out of sea water at a rate of 147 liters per hour. Bam !!! The most important thing this obviates are trips to the dock with the boat (hazardous and time consuming) or trips to the dock with the dinghy carrying jerry cans (heavy and cumbersome). So today was watermaking day. We turn on the generator (5 KW for you techies out there), and shazamm.....water. We also run our clothes-washer, hot water heater, and 100 amp battery charger at the same time so as not to waste diesel. Clothes washer ? That's right my friends.........the Super Maramu 2000 sports both a clothes washer and dish washer !!! While we don't use the dish washer (largely because we don't still cook much onboard - I'm sure that doesn't come as a surprise), we do snicker when we see other cruisers going to shore in the rain carrying large laundry bags. OK- I'll admit that this part of chore day is easy........start the generator and push a few buttons- water, power, and clean laundry.
But part of chore day is hard- getting fuel. We keep L'ORIENT fueled up but we wanted to fill our 5 diesel jerry cans (which gives us a motoring range of about 1000 miles when combined with the 600 liter main fuel tank). We also needed gasoline for our hungrier new outboard Seymour. So we filled the large dinghy tank and our two small reserve tanks. Then we motored from the fuel dock back to the boat, looking like terrorists with our 130 liters of highly flammable liquids stacked up. Our dinghy was so low in the water we had to go slowly lest we capsize.
Next was grocery shopping. We're staying in Columbier tomorrow (no restaurants but great beach and no rolling all night). So, we will need to cook on the boat again (twice this week !!!!). This involves deciphering french labels and of course ferrying everything we buy to the boat.
Lastly, the sensor on our chain counter broke..........sounds trivial, but it tells you how much anchor chain you have out. We use this as well as an anchor marker float so that we don't find ourselves on the rocks one morning. We had to take our scooter to the Fedex location on St. Barths to pay the import duty because we were able to order it from the Amel factory and have it shipped here.
Yawn.........chore day was very hard and I think I need a rest before dinner. Think I'll chill on the tanning pad so I can watch sea turtles and work on my tan.
But part of chore day is hard- getting fuel. We keep L'ORIENT fueled up but we wanted to fill our 5 diesel jerry cans (which gives us a motoring range of about 1000 miles when combined with the 600 liter main fuel tank). We also needed gasoline for our hungrier new outboard Seymour. So we filled the large dinghy tank and our two small reserve tanks. Then we motored from the fuel dock back to the boat, looking like terrorists with our 130 liters of highly flammable liquids stacked up. Our dinghy was so low in the water we had to go slowly lest we capsize.
Next was grocery shopping. We're staying in Columbier tomorrow (no restaurants but great beach and no rolling all night). So, we will need to cook on the boat again (twice this week !!!!). This involves deciphering french labels and of course ferrying everything we buy to the boat.
Lastly, the sensor on our chain counter broke..........sounds trivial, but it tells you how much anchor chain you have out. We use this as well as an anchor marker float so that we don't find ourselves on the rocks one morning. We had to take our scooter to the Fedex location on St. Barths to pay the import duty because we were able to order it from the Amel factory and have it shipped here.
Yawn.........chore day was very hard and I think I need a rest before dinner. Think I'll chill on the tanning pad so I can watch sea turtles and work on my tan.