Showerless Bathing

[Joli]

In warm water we take a salt bath and fresh water rinse. Two quarts is plenty to wash hair and rinse/person.

[henryk]

when I go sailing for a week with out the admiral , I don't even bother showering . After a few days with out showering my skin seams to adapt to it . Once in My life time when I was young and handsome , ended up on the streets of Madrid for a week as a homeless hobo . Don't want to go into details how good of the life it was , almost like cruising , but better . No worry about boat repairs , bills and food was for free . This is when I discover "no need for showering for extended period of times" . Talk to hobos and ask them how often do they wash and how often do they get sick.

[Viking Sailor]

If you dilute Joy with water before soaping up it requires a lot less water to rinse it off.

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by Viking Sailor

If you dilute Joy with water before soaping up it requires a lot less water to rinse it off.

Glad I'm not the only one that noticed this. I love Joy, but if you use it in a straight concentration it's a nightmare to get off. I've made a lot of tea and coffee and still had the faint smell of Joy in it.

[MidLandOne]

We are usually away from fresh water supplies for 3 or more weeks at a time so often just sponge down with salt water. As another has said it is no problem as long as towel it straight off.

For soap we use the soft hand soaps that come in pumps or in refills to go in pumps. They lather purrfectly in salt water although one has to be careful when selecting by scent as many are of a sniff not well suited to whole body use (Green Tea being one example ). A side use if fishing is they are quite good at removing fishy smells off hands too.

[Sesame]

I use Dr. Bronner's natural liquid soap, available in health and natural foods stores, for salt water baths. It laters nicely in salt water and comes in various scents -- usually peppermint. A fresh water rinse from a Sun Shower or boat supply is a luxury when available. As others have said, towel off immediately so the salt water does not dry on your skin.

[rebel heart]

Dr. Bronner's is my soap of choice for everything but the head and dishes. My fiancee and I both use it for body soap, I use it for hair soap, and I use it to wash the dog as well. Great stuff, and a great company here in San Diego.

Highly recommend it to anyone.

[ireaney]

Get a decent watermaker and have fresh showers daily!!

[yachtrodney]

This is a small crusade - I've been on for ages.

I have lived aboard the yacht - on land - for the past 4 years while I was preparing it to come to the water - which we now have.

During this time I would put water into some of the yacht's tanks about once a month - but never have I filled them. The water came from large rain water collection tanks off a nearby shed (this was a semi -rural property on acres).

Conserving the water was not really essential - but from day one - of living on board - I reverted to 'cruising' showers - and would never just stand under the shower with the water running continuously. Always just getting under to wet hair (long) and all over (large) for say 15 seconds - then turning off the taps while I shampooed the hair and soaped up the rest - then turning the showers back on for a good solid wash and rinse down - with HOT water - for say 30 seconds.

And I know this may not sound like that big a deal for those of you living out of buckets and 20L water cans - and showering with thimbles - but to everyone else - and nearly all the landlubbers - the mere act of just turning off the taps while you soap up - probably means you are using only 10% of what you would do - by just standing under the shower with it running luxuriously for minutes on end.

[I might add here too that I hate those miserly fine spraying - water saving heads. If I'm going to have a shower and it's only going to be for 30 seconds - then I want to know about it thanks - and I want that water falling on me like a 6" monsoon downpour]

And you know that here in Australia - on land - in this time of droughts and storage dams at record lows - still - everyone will just hop in their home shower - one after the other - in a family - and stand there forever - using thousands of litres every time - and never give it a thought.

And here is what I set out to tell you:

Having spent a good year aboard - and just taken a 'yacht shower' - religiously turning off the taps as I've described - and then turning them back on to rinse - I was laying in bed watching TV - and it was 'The Inventors' on the ABC - and this fellow had invented this Shower Head fixture - with a 'water saving' lovely brass tap on it.

As I looked at it - I said - 'You're an f...in idiot - Rodney' - and I leapt out of bed - went straight out to the workroom, pulled out a tray and grabbed a small stainless steel ball valve ($10) - and a wrench. Into the shower - unscrewed the 'rainfall' shower head - and screwed in BEFORE IT - this ball valve.

So NOW - after you've wet down - and with the shower taps just right - you reach up and flick the valve shut - while you do the lather thing - then reach back up - and PRESTO - the water is right back on - at EXACTLY the SAME temperature and pressure - you had before. No messing with the taps - and no wasting precious seconds adjusting anything.

Now I know that many of you will say that this is just SO OBVIOUS a solution - as to be hardly worth mentioning - and that's just what I say. But it took me a year - and probably would have gone several more turning taps on and off - if I hadn't SEEN IT. And then KICKED myself for not having thought of it myself. Maybe it was just TOO obvious.

Here is a photo I took a few minutes ago - just to show you - the OBVIOUS.





Rodney

PS Showering with just cold water - or maybe seawater - all the time - is not that good - you need water to be at a certain hot temperature for it to clean and kill bacteria growing on your body - or you will just end up with boils. If possible you should wash yourself with HOT water.

But I must admit - that I do love the comment - that 'snorkelling counts as a bath'.

[henryk]

Rodney ! was that before chopping the boat in half or after ?
Bet after the "surgery " the shower head was on the top part, and the controls on the bottom . What a courage you have with your project . I would give up long time ago .
If you get a one lever control for your shower there is no messing around and adjusting the water temperature . In my house I got rid of all double controls, and life since than is much simpler and the water usage minimal.

[yachtrodney]

Henryk - I have answered elsewhere

cutting the bathroom

Rodney

[slomotion]

Hmmmm - I've only owned two sailboats that had showers. Both of them had a valve on the shower head to turn off the water. I kind of thought they were all like that - I guess I never really noticed on other people's boats.

It doesn't have to be a shower, but in my experience if you want female companionship, you need to provide fresh water for hair washing - and not just for rinsing.

[Perithead]

yatchrodney

PS Showering with just cold water - or maybe seawater - all the time - is not that good - you need water to be at a certain hot temperature for it to clean and kill bacteria growing on your body - or you will just end up with boils. If possible you should wash yourself with HOT water.

Really? I didnt know this. SO with this ebing true lets look back at the indians or and other groups of people who didnt have the avaliabilty of hot water to bathe in. Did they have bacteria growing on their body all their lives? I dont want to sound like a smart a## but this is just my question.

[slomotion]

Don't know about American Indian bathing habits, but Pre-Columbian life expectancy in North American was about 30.

[yachtrodney]

Yes - quite so 'Perithead' (what's that all about?)

There seems little evidence - anywhere in the entire world wide web of knowledge - to support my claim.

In fact 'Alice' the Health advisor at Columbia University says:

Dear Freaked about bacteria, The water that we use for showering has chlorine in it, which prevents bacteria from existing in the water itself. As far as killing the bacteria on our body, your cousin's biology teacher is right that the water is not hot enough to kill them and could potentially cause growth. The cool shower idea makes sense, but does not sound especially pleasant (unless you're used to living in a developing country). Try using a washcloth or loofah sponge in the shower to rub off the dead skin and bacteria, rather than being so overly concerned and fearful that you have to take a cold shower every morning! Any microbiologists out there, feel free to correct Alice!

Maybe it was something else that gave me those boils - and maybe it was the chlorine in land water that cleared them up - or maybe it WAS taking HOT showers instead of cold.

There must be a lot of people out there who don't take anything BUT cold showers and washes - living aboard yachts and on the forum - have they ever had any problems in the years of cruising?

Rodney