Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Laundry Mat Blues!


Except I’m not at a laundry mat!  I’m on our boat, Genesis!  When we travel from island to island, sometimes we don’t stay long enough to find a place to do laundry. So, what’s a girl to do?




Well, I do it on the boat, of course!  I have two big flexible buckets that I bought for that purpose and I get busy in the cockpit when it’s time to do laundry.  



One bucket is for washing and one is for rinsing. I wash a small amount of clothes at a time and agitate with a plunger (yep, that’s right… a toilet plunger! But don’t worry, it has never been used in a toilet!).  








When I am sitting there plunging away, I am usually looking at some beautiful water and scenery. There are some upsides for doing laundry in paradise! (At least, that’s how I rationalize it!.)  Then I wring out the washed clothes then place them in the rinse water. Wring again and I’m done. Well, not quite....



I hang the clothes all over the boat to dry. I have a couple of small lines in the cockpit and I also use the lifelines, the shrouds and anything else I can get a clothes pin attached.  Sometimes I drape my sheets over the boom to dry. When it’s windy, the clothes dry faster than in a dryer!  And there's always that worry that the clothes pins are going to fly off and my clothes will fly off to parts unknown. 



Alas, sometimes I leave the clothes hanging out and Mother Nature has another go at it… rain can come at any time in the tropics.

When we stay at an island for an extended time, most of the time we are lucky enough to find a marina with a washer and dryer. It’s usually expensive, though.  In Grenada, I am paying $4.50 to wash and $7.50 to dry… $12 a load!  Yikes!



And that’s how the laundry is done! So the next time you dread doing the laundry at your house, think about me… then you’ll realize that it’s not so bad after all!  


Oh, the joys of cruising! It's not all tropical drinks with little beach umbrellas! 


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