Housekeeping aboard S/V Blondie-Dog...

Washing dishes aboard the boat is about my least pleasant chore. Mainly because I'm already somewhat exhausted after having to coax the alcohol stove to put out some heat to cook a simple meal and because I'm hot after slaving in the galley and because I've eaten and all I want to do is go shower and then kick back.

I did replace the sink strainer sometime ago and repaired its plastic tubing so that all the yucky dish water along with the gross food particles wouldn't drain into the bilge.

Nevertheless I have found that the most effective way to wash dishes is with two buckets sitting side by side in the cockpit. One for washing and the other for rinsing. Once offshore, there will be three buckets. Two of which will be for rinsing and the last of the two with but a little bit of fresh water.

If I happen to be too indisposed to wash dishes in the evenings, I simply let these soak overnight in a bucket of sudsy water out in the cockpit. I'll later wash these the next morning. It's not like I got to get up early the next morning to commute to the claustrophobic confinement of an office cubicle. Besides, Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind" would often justify her procrastinations by declaring, "After all, tomorrow is another day."

Hey dude... you need to read that book...it's a good book.

S/V Blondie-Dog also happens to have a new "washer machine" of sorts... at least the clothes agitator part of it for the wash cycle anyway. Cruising tip number 863 out of the "Why Didn't I Think of That" compilation of tips from live-aboard sailors, suggest a bucket and a toilet-bowl plunger.

Well, I can certainly attest to the fact that this tip actually does work. My Beer & Wine home brewing deluxe primary fermenter previously used to ferment wine back in another life in Ennis, Texas was salvaged out of a storage unit and brought on board the boat to serve other purposes.

Ever since then, the bucket has been occasionally b*thching at me and telling me that she was intended to brew beer and make wine and not wash grungy underwear and t-shirts, nor was she intended to be turned upside down in the cockpit late in the evenings and used as a table for my laptop.

All of which I have to remind her in no unequivocal terms that I am the captain of the boat and she'll do what I tell her to do and that if she b*tches too much she will be consigned to indelicate number 2 duties.