May 17, 2005 - USEFUL CRUISING TIPS
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

Wherever we go we gather useful tips. Some are well-known ploys, others are ingenious original ideas passed on by people we meet. Here are a few of the ideas picked up along the way from fellow cruisers, plus some we've figured out for ourselves over the years. Forgive us if these tips are old hat to you.

Years ago in Sausalito's heyday, we met the author of a little book called Baking Bread in a Black Iron Frying Pan. We tried baking bread on top of the stove - as well as cakes and scones, even quiches - in a lidded frying pan with a folded towel on top to make an effective "Dutch oven". (We use a heavy no-stick pan these days.) Bread we bake in an ancient aluminum pressure cooker (without the gasket or the pressure device) even though we have a perfectly good oven. We oil the pot and flour it, then heat it before putting the dough in to rise, letting it rise only once. Any recipe will do. A super low flame will cook it without burning the bottom. When it's done (I can usually tell by the smell) and has pulled away from the sides of the pot, I run a knife blade around it, and dump it out. I then brown the top of the loaf by putting it back in the other way up, this time leaving the lid off. The time it takes to bake a loaf of bread depends on the size of the loaf and the heat of the flame, usually about half an hour or a little more, plus a quarter of an hour or less for browning the top. Baking on the stove top is sensible, particularly in the tropics, because it releases much less heat into the boat besides using far less LPG - a nuisance to refill, and in some parts of the world expensive or unobtainable.

We use empty wine bladders from Chateau Cardboard (otherwise known as Vino Collapso) blown up to required size to still and silence objects in drawers, lockers, and shelves and to fill up empty spaces in fridge or freezer.

We dress stored bottles of rum, jars of pickles, or whatever else is fragile and precious, in socks, to keep the glass from clinking or breaking in rough weather.

We keep a couple of Frisbees on hand - one to use for sprouting seeds - ideal because with the incurved perimeter you can pour off water without losing seeds. We put the Frisbee planter onto stacked plates in a cupboard where it's dark and airy enough for seeds to grow well, besides being accessed often enough to remind us to rinse the sprouts. We end up with a wee bean sprout garden or a little circular lawn of alfalfa sprouts for sandwiches and salads. Alfalfa seeds sprout more readily if you use boiling water for the initial soaking.

We store some fruit and veggies - oranges, lemons for instance that we want to keep for some weeks - in pillow cases so they don't shrivel up and go hard.

We get favorite photos, postcards, sketches and paintings laminated before Blue Tacking them onto bulkheads for display. It keeps them from getting grimy and curled. I usually get several done at once, as many as will fit into an A3 or A4 envelope, then trim them on the shop's paper cutter - six or eight or more for the price of one.

Curtain material samples (those no longer stocked or in production) are often sold for next to nothing by curtain shops. They are ideal for fashioning place mats, bag-bags, potholders, and for covering cushions. You can often buy whole curtains cheaply in Thrift Shops. That's what I use for covering cockpit cushions. I use the curtain material fabric with the sunshield backing.

Sailmakers often have small offcuts of white or colored stick-on sailcloth in their toss out bins that they are happy to let us have. They are useful for patching or reinforcing or beefing up all manner of things - awnings, convertible tops, oilskins, backpacks, knees or seats of trousers. You name it...

Clothes pegs are handy to use as reminders. For instance, when we turn on the gas we put a bright pink clothes peg on the stove shield to remind us to turn off the gas when we're through. Should the time come when we forget what the peg is for, it'll be time to move ashore.

We put clothes pegs on horizontally to secure laundry. This we learned the hard way after losing a brand new pair of corduroy trousers that went walkabout in British Columbia way back when we were new to the game. If you only put pegs on vertically in the normal manner they may pop off in gusty winds when you're not looking - as we discovered.

We keep a basin of water and a pegged towel at the top of the boarding ladder to dunk sandy or muddy feet, shoes or boots when boarding to help keep decks clean.

A small herbicide sprayer with a dark cover for solar heating serves as a simple fresh water shower to rinse off after swimming, if your Sun Shower has packed it in. After rain, we have been known to use what we call 'dinghy swill' which is to say - rainwater that has been bailed from the tender - if our water tanks are getting low.

Those of us without watermakers often bathe and shampoo while swimming, where conditions allow it. Most shampoos work just fine in salt water. Joy dishwashing detergent was our original favorite for ocean baths. In the Caribbean we used to introduce our charter guests to Joy baths on the first day out. One particularly furry-chested New Yorker said, "Skipper, I can't unjoy myself!" You don't even need a fresh water rinse if you towel dry adequately. We plumbed our geyser LPG hot water heater to run on salt water and then switch over to fresh water to rinse the heater and ourselves so we need use very little fresh water for showering, where salt water is clean, that is.

When swim towels become stiff with salt, we place them on deck in heavy rain folded in half over a line secured at each end. Every now and then, we put them around a stanchion to wring them out. Two or three such goes can de-salt and soften a towel.

We have a sign on the underside of the toilet lid saying Please kneel or sit 2P SVP. It's a blessing for whoever has a towel hanging nearby, and for whoever cannot bear cleaning up around WCs. Earth People simply don't think.