Water, water everywhere redux...

As today is Blog action day 2010 and the subject is clean water, I'd thought a repeat of this post would be no bad thing...

One of the first things that living on a small boat teaches you is your place in the eco-system... Unlike most land dwellers, you know exactly how much stuff you consume, how much waste you generate, how much electricity you use and how many hours of sun/wind or generator used to replace it. In other words, living on a boat gives you a clue (which I guess makes most land-dwellers clueless?).

Water for most newbies on boats is something of a panic-attack inducing conundrum as the wasteful practices ingrained in the resource wasting land dwelling model is very hard to break and trying to make these ingrained bad habits work on a cruising boat... Well, that way lies madness!

On the other hand, water IS serious stuff. We need water to live so it is something that does need to be factored in terms of how much you use, how much you actually need, how to obtain it, and how to keep it.

Throwing money at the situation with something like a watermaker or turning your boat into a sailing tanker truck seems to be the two most popular initial answers to the problem of having enough water. The real answer is getting in touch with the need/want equation and begin using what you need, rather than what you want or think you need or, in other words, get smart and waste less...


Speaking of waste and water, here is a great presentation on a perfect example of silly waste/being dumb where water is concerned and a great example on how what we think is true, simply is not.