Provisioning Tip - Baby Wipes

NOTE: The information which follows may be too personal for those with delicate sensibilities. Read at your own risk of embarrassment.

And now a word about personal hygiene on a long ocean voyage - particularly for those boats: still without water makers; which aren't particularly sea kindly; or which are traveling in cold waters. There are many times when it simply isn't practical to take a full shower. You may be conserving water by taking occasional salt water baths out in the cockpit. If you're fortunate enough to have plenty of fresh water and a below deck shower, you might be sailing hard on the wind for days at a time, which would make taking a slippery shower a risky proposition. And even if you are lucky enough to be sailing downwind in the tropics, with the sweat rolling off your palms as you update blog entries on your lap top, you'll most likely want a refreshing pick-me-up in between showers.

We recently met a man from South Korea (with the improbable, but highly pronounceable name of "Doug") who completed a 30-plus day passage from Los Angeles to Hawaii on a small sailboat fraught with breakdowns of every sort. After making landfall he was given a ride in a car to Customs to clear in. During this brief trip he was very embarrassed by and profusely apologized in broken English for his 30-plus day ripening odor. This got me to ruminating about baby wipes.

Not actually baby wipes, but "adult" wipes. Because what you really want to avoid are the sickly sweet, highly perfumed wipes that leave a weird slippery film on your skin. This is what you'll be stuck buying in some place like the Galapagos if you haven't thought it out ahead of time. These are better than nothing at all, but you'll never be able to appreciate the scent of a clean baby's bottom again in your life.

Wipes are a great way to get relief from that sticky, sweaty feeling before climbing into a berth left hot and damp by the crew member coming on watch (preferably your spouse and not some backpacker you picked up in Panama City). (By the way, I think this is why it's called "hot bunking.") Even sailing in cold climates you'll appreciate being able to hit the three hot spot areas - pits, crotch, and dogs - with a quick and easy spit bath. (Don't forget to add a generous swipe of Tom's of Maine deodorant to your pits to keep those pesky bacteria at bay!)

Which brings me to my personal recommendations based on six Equator crossings in the past three years. Forget anything clearly marked for babies if at all possible. Our most recent best buy has been the Walmart house brand (Equate) "Naturally Gentle Wipes" which are hypo-allergenic and alcohol free. The wipes themselves are on the small side, but that makes it easier to dedicate each one to a particular "hot spot." (I don't know about you but there isn't a hot spot I'd want to wipe after either of the other two.) When you get to Papeete (you are going to French Polynesia, aren't you?) be on the lookout for the Carrefour brand wipe called "Absodys" (which must be French for something, but I couldn't find it in my pocket dictionary), which is specifically marketed for athletic adults. These are alcohol-free and are a large size which tears easily into - you guessed it - three convenient pieces.

So when you finally step on shore after a long passage at sea I hope these thoughts about baby wipes will make your first encounter with a clean person a pleasant one!

Provisioning

This week has been a blur of shopping, stowing groceries, and finishing projects. The haul out itself was one of our easier ones since the only big job was getting new bottom paint on the boat. When we were working stiffs (and vacation time was precious) we used to bang that chore out over a four day weekend, but with eight days in the yard we could take it easy. The big news is not only did we paint over the old blue boot stripe, but we also raised the waterline - again. Hopefully this will cut down on the number of times we have to scrub green slime off the white hull. While we were on the hard John also painted the newly modified propane locker in our cockpit. Now it fits the new tanks we ordered after the ones we purchased in Panama City rusted.

Thanks to Ralph and Glenda we've made numerous trips to Costco which has been a huge money saver. It always hurts the wallet to buy six months to a year's worth of provisions but we think it will pay off in the long run. Except for last minute fresh things we made our last $300 visit today and are already kicking ourselves for not buying more cans of dry roasted peanuts. And after spending $200 at the vet on five cases of prescription canned food and a 10 lb bag of prescription kibble we find we still need another bag of kibble to get us through one year. I still can't wrap my head around the idea of needing a prescription to buy cat food.

I spent one day scrubbing misc. black marks and marks from the Travlift off the hull and the next day we gave the whole boat a good scrubbing. John finished replacing the rigging (shrouds and bobstays) and cut down our new plastic chairs to fit in the cockpit. Stowing all the provisions is a time consuming process as we make it a rule to label the tops of cans with a Sharpie and remove all paper labels in the hope that this will cut down on places for critters to hide. We try to eliminate as much packaging as possible to give our garbage to a first world country rather than burning it ourselves farther down the line. And we do a lot of vacuum sealing/bagging to keep the critters out and to repackage bulk items into smaller units. We're stowing heavy items on the port side of the boat in anticipation of spending most of the passage on port tack, and we now have a noticeable list.

John is now working on our taxes, we have some more non-Costco shopping to do, and a few projects to finish up, and we're looking for a good weather window. Oh, but first we have to get our fuel injection pump back from Honolulu, so we'll try to wrap everything up in anticipation of that.

Linda