The answer is, with difficulty! Yesterday was my day on ‘Mother Watch’.
This means that for one day you are excused from your deck jobs and instead are responsible for feeding the crew and keeping the boat clean.
This is no easy task when you have 20 people to feed and all of the kitchen equipment is liable to fly across the galley without warning! I was on mother watch with Jen and after we had finished serving breakfast (porridge with dried fruits and honey) we took the chance to have our first proper showers for a week. There is an unlimited supply of salt water to the basins in the heads so we found that the best way to shower was to wash in salt water, including dipping our hair in it, before having a fresh water rinse down from a bucket next to the sink. It was quite difficult to balance whilst juggling soap and keeping your clothes off the wet floor but we got there and wow, does it feel great to be clean again!
We also washed some of the clothes for the crew, boiling up water in the galley and then putting them in a dry bag with washing powder on the bow for an hour or so. This let the motion of the boat do the washing for us and afterwards all that was needed was a quick rinse before hanging the kit out to dry. Uniquely Singapore looked like a pirate galleon with all of her crews’ socks and T-shirts pegged on the guard wires, but at least we all smell better now!
Lauren x
