Secret Showers

I don't know how most men are absolutely able to go without a shower for four weeks! I know they apparently do the wet wipes cleaning thing, but nothing compares to getting clean water over your skin. Even throughout the very hot leg one over the equator, many of the guys on board didn't bother to wash with water. We had a few fire drills and then they had a rinse down, and of course when we had our shellback ceremony they had to get the slops washed off, but apart from that it seems they see this is a kind of a camping trip where they don't need to wash really. And they also see it as a bit of an irritation that the ladies seem to have a need to shower! I always feel a bit guilty when I do.

In the first leg, when we had very hot weather through the doldrums, I used every opportunity to sit at the back of the boat and have a sea water bucket wash and then rinse with a litre bottle of clean water. When one of the crew mates did a limerick about each of us, that was the thing he mentioned about me - not missing an opportunity to have a shower. I would mostly do it at night, when it was dark enough to do it as unnoticed as possible. I would put my bathing suit on, have my life jacket on, and sit with my legs dangling over the side.

This has many challenges: have you ever tried to get a bucket full of water on a speeding boat? The bucket just seems to skim over the surface, but when the water does eventually go into the bucket the force is quite intense, and I am so scared to lose the bucket over the side. I have lost so may things over the side already.

On this leg the whole atmosphere and climate of the crew and trip is very different. Firstly, it is much cooler and then it is at such an angle that everything is so much more difficult. I would not be able to sit at the back of the boat with ease, so I asked sheepishly if I can have a shower in the one head that is kind of set up for a shower. When I say set up, I mean that the there is a foot pump to get rid of water on the floor, there is a shower head in the hand size basin, and that is all.

I eventually managed to convince some men to 'allow' me to shower today but it took me over an hour because firstly just staying upright is already no mean feat! The cubicle is very small, the whole place gets wet so one has to dry everything off meticulously afterwards, and then you I had to pump the gray tank.

But alas, I got a shower! I feel like a new woman, and I appreciate the feeling fully because I don't know if I'll be able to have one again before we reach Cape Town!

When you have your next shower, please think of me and appreciate the glory of it all.