I have been told before that any job you wish to do on a boat will take you at least twice as long as it would on land. Today that saying rang true. I had for a mission to wash all of our pillows. Back on land this would have taken maybe an hour or two. Throw the pillows in the washing machine, press sanitize, let the washer do it’s thing, and then hang them out to dry. Today that task took me four hours, it definitely was the long way. Eben took Ellia to the beach and I got to work.
First I had to find a container big enough to hold a large amount of water and pillows, no bathtubs at hand here. We have two large Tupperware bins that we used when flying, instead of suitcases, to bring things with us on to the boat. We now use the bins for storage of ropes, old sailcloth, and our Honda 1000 generator. They are otherwise called our Outdoor Storage, or the garage. I emptied one of those to use as my wash basin. Then I filled it with water from one of our 5 gallon jugs, diluted some bleach into it, some detergent, and went to work. The process was brainless and repetitive, soak, wash, ring out, rinse, ring out, hang to dry. I had to do this seven times, since each pillow was washed individually, due to size restraints. The harder part was doing all of that with ziplock baggies on my hands to protect my hands from the bleach. We do not have dish gloves aboard, and I couldn’t find the latex gloves that Eben has for doing epoxy work. He told me after that the baggies were probably better as the latex gloves wouldn’t have done so well in the bleach.
Half way through my load I went into town to pick up Arias from school and used that trip as an opportunity to get more water. With our stroller as carrier for the 5 gallon jug, I walked into town where there is a tap with free city water. This water is not suggested for drinking, but works just fine for washing pillows. I may have looked like a crazy person pushing my blue jug of water around in a baby stroller, but I
felt pretty witty. It saved me having to lug the jug all the way back to the dock, sweating and stopping every two steps to switch hands. Arias and I dinghied back to the boat and I continued with the washing. When that was finally finished I hung them all up on the life lines and let the sun do the rest. I went out and rotated them every couple of hours in the hopes that they would fully dry before bedtime tonight, or else it will be an uncomfortable night for the whole family since I washed every pillow on the boat. I also wanted to give the sun the chance to bleach them out to get them as clean as possible.
felt pretty witty. It saved me having to lug the jug all the way back to the dock, sweating and stopping every two steps to switch hands. Arias and I dinghied back to the boat and I continued with the washing. When that was finally finished I hung them all up on the life lines and let the sun do the rest. I went out and rotated them every couple of hours in the hopes that they would fully dry before bedtime tonight, or else it will be an uncomfortable night for the whole family since I washed every pillow on the boat. I also wanted to give the sun the chance to bleach them out to get them as clean as possible.
By afternoon, I was pretty wiped of energy and happy with my morning productivity, and so we took the girls to the beach to hang out. And by that I mean, Eben went for a quick spear fishing venture, and I waded on the paddleboard while the girls entertained themselves with the sand, critters, and ocean. We hung out there until we could no longer bare the sandflies, I was getting attacked by those barely-there bugs and am now riddled with little red welts. Paddling back to the boat was rewarding from the sense of accomplishment, seeing all of those clean pillows hanging out to dry. Now we sit back with sundowners in hand. Cheers.
All of my cleaning out to dry. There really were sweat, not tears, poured into this project.
This is an older beach picture, but they all look similar, except for now both girls are in rashguards instead.
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